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THE DOCTOR (DOCTOR WHO)

The Doctor is an alien from Gallifrey. His people are a humanoid species, called Time Lords because they perfected the science of time travel. The Doctor is fond of Earth and visits it often. The Time Lords have a strict nonintervention policy with regard to the rest of the universe. The Doctor dissented from this policy, holding that great power confers great responsibility. For this heresy the Time Lords exiled him from Gallifrey. He has since traveled through space and time to battle evil wherever he finds it. Sometimes the fate of the universe hangs in the balance.

Real name: Unknown (38 syllables long) Other aliases: Doc, Prof, Theta Sigma Identity: Secret Occupation: Interstellar and Transtemporal Adventurer, Time Lord, occasionally Scientific Advisor to the Unified Intelligence Taskforce Legal status: None Place of birth: Loombanks, House of Lungbarrow, Southern mountains of Gallifrey Marital status: Single Known relatives: Susan "Foreman" (grand-daughter), Miranda "Dawkins" (adopted daughter), Irving Braxiatel (brother), Patience (wife, deceased), Scarlette (wife), Iphegenia (future wife); Almund, Arkhew, Celesia, Chovor, DeRoosifa, Farg, Glospin, Innocet, Jobiska, Luton, Maljamin, Owis, Quences, Rynde, Salpash, Satthralope, Tulgel, 28 unnamed others (Cousins) Penelope (possible mother), Salyavin (possible father), the Other (genetic forebear), Pfifl and Laklis (Hroth foster parents, fifth Doctor on). Base of operations: Type 40 TARDIS, mobile across the known universe Group affiliation: Time Lords, Unified Intelligence Taskforce (UNIT)

History: When the universe was in it's infancy, one of the first civilisations arose on the planet Gallifrey. They were exceptionally long lived, naturally sensitive to the flow of time, and highly telepathic. For many long years the Gallifreyans were ruled by a matriarchal cult led by the Pythia, who ruled through superstition and magic. Gradually an opposing faction arose which embraced science, conquering space and establishing a Gallifreyan Empire. Most notably a triumvirate of three young Gallifreyans came to the fore; the scientist Rassilon, the engineer Omega, and a third individual whose name has been lost to history, remembered only as The Other. Together these three pioneered the science of time travel. Foreseeing that her rule was ending, the 508th Pythia committed suicide, but not before using her vast telepathic powers to curse her people with sterility; no more children would be born of the womb on Gallifrey.

Rassilon turned his attention to this problem, and created vast Looms of genetic material, capable of decanting new Gallifreyans from the primordial soup within. His first few prototypes of the new "Loom-born" Gallifreyans would eventually become known as the Special Executive. The later Loom-born had lesser telepathic abilities and shorter life spans than their Womb-born counterparts, but could regenerate their forms. To keep the population under control, Rassilon organised the Gallifreyans into Houses, and decreed that each House could have only 45 "Cousins" at any one time.

The three friends' experiments into time travel continued, and they came to realise that a very special power source was required to allow development of stable time travel. They would need to capture a black hole. So they developed a stellar manipulator known as the Hand of Omega, able to blow up stars. Unfortunately sabotage by an outside agency meant that Omega's ship was sucked into the newly created void, and he would long be believed dead. But his sacrifice helped make the Gallifreyans Lords of Time.

Back on Gallifrey Rassilon had become a hero, and de facto ruler of the planet. Some nine years after the death of the Pythia, he ordered a massacre of her remaining followers who were hiding in her temple. Rassilon felt no pity for her acolytes as his wife had miscarried when the Pythia invoked her curse, but the Other could not stomach the new, totalitarian regime he could see taking over his world. He ordered that his sole surviving relative (and the last child who had been born before the curse), his grand-daughter Susan, be taken safely off-world, for he saw trouble in his planet's future, and then he committed suicide by throwing himself into the Looms, mixing his genetic material with what was already there.

The Other would be proven right; first Rassilon would lead a campaign against any alien powers he deemed might one day threaten his new Gallifrey, exterminating a number of species such as the Charon and the Great Vampires; where possible they would wipe them from history in what would later be termed the Time Wars. And secondly civil war came again to Gallifrey when the Loom-born, tired of being treated as second class citizens, rose up to exterminate their Womb-born fellows. Although Rassilon himself remained venerated as their "father", the rest of the Womb-born were eventually thought to be wiped out, although in truth a handful of them survived, hiding themselves amongst the rest of the population.

Eventually the Time Lords adopted a policy of non-intervention. Forbidden to travel into their own past or future, a people who prided themselves on observing and recording all history ironically (or conveniently) forgot much of their own. Rassilon's era became known as the Old Time.

A little over one thousand years ago a new Cousin was born in the House of Lungbarrow. His true name is all but unpronounceable to anyone who isn't Gallifreyan, and besides, his relatives soon took to calling him by the derisive nicknames "Snail" and "Wormhole" because of the small indentation-like birth mark he had in the lower portion of his chest. Being Loom-borns, none of them recognised what another species would have said was a belly-button. Unknown to all, including the new born, the Other's genetic material had finally been fully restored to a new body. Snail never fitted in and had no real friends amongst his Cousins.

As was expected Snail went to the Academy, the graduates of whom would rise above being simple Gallifreyans to the thousand strong Time Lord elite, and there he gained a new name from his classmates: Theta Sigma, or Thete for short. Enrolled in the Prydonian Chapter, whose members were renowned for being devious, he encountered Irving Braxiatel, a kindred spirit a few classes above him, who also yearned for life beyond he stagnant atmosphere on unchanging Gallifrey. He also fell in with a group of the brightest students who called themselves the Deca. Many of this group would later leave Gallifrey and become renegades from their people. And it was while he was one of the Deca that Thete finally chose a name for himself, rather than letting others pick for him; he became known as the Doctor.

Knowing that the head of his House, Quences, had ambitions of high office for him, the Doctor deliberately scraped a minimum pass mark at the Academy. Angered, Quences disowned the Doctor, and without waiting for permission to do so, had the family Loom decant a new Cousin to replace him. The Doctor informed the head of the Prydonian Chapter of this breach of the rules, and then decided that the time was right to leave his homeworld. Stealing a TARDIS from the repair bays (as the rest were too well guarded), he departed Gallifrey unaware that his House had been excommunicated for creating a new Cousin, their names struck off all records and all his Cousins buried alive in the House for their crime. They would remain there for hundreds of years.

The Doctor soon discovered he had a stowaway in his new TARDIS. The Hand of Omega, which had been in storage for many years since its last use, had recognised in the Doctor the pattern of one of its makers, and followed him on board. It overrode the safeguards that prevented travel into Gallifrey's past, taking the Doctor back to the Old Time. There he soon encountered a young girl living on the streets. Susan, the Other's grand-daughter, had not made it off-planet after all; the instant she and the Doctor met they recognised a connection between them, and when Susan called him "Grandfather" somehow the Doctor knew she was correct no matter how much it defied logic.

Together they set off on journeys across the breadth of the universe, until Susan decided she wanted to try living as a proper teenager for a while. The two Gallifreyans stopped off in 1963 England, and Susan enrolled in a local school, Coal Hill. But her strange nature soon drew the attention of two of her teachers, Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, who followed her home one night to the junkyard where the TARDIS had landed. The Doctor had used the prolonged stay to arrange to hide the Hand of Omega on Earth, and possibly because of this and a fear that the teachers might draw the attention of the authorities to the Hand, he took off with them inside the ship, kidnapping them.

Time passed. Susan left him, and Ian and Barbara, having long since earned his trust, eventually returned home. Other companions joined him in his travels, and as he saw more of the universe, the Doctor increasingly encountered beings of evil he felt had to be opposed. After a while his body, old when he had left Gallifrey, finally gave in to time, and he experienced his first regeneration.

His new body had a tendency to act the fool while quietly manipulating events behind the scenes. He continued his campaign against evil across the galaxy, and more companions came and went. Finally he faced a problem that he could not deal with alone, and reluctantly called on the help of the Time Lords. They assisted him, but then put him on trial for breaking their laws on non-interference. The Doctor argued that there were some evils that had to be fought. In the end he won a partial victory. The Time Lords exiled him to a single planet and a single era, but it was his favourite world, Earth, and the era had been chosen because it was a period when the planet would face regular threats from alien incursions. They also forced another regeneration on him.

The new incarnation of the Doctor arrived shortly after man had started to travel into space, drawing the attention of other races. He agreed to help UNIT, a United Nations taskforce whose remit was to combat alien threats, and worked to repair his TARDIS and beat his exile. After a couple of years his opportunity came when Omega returned, angry at the Time Lords for abandoning him. Unable to deal with the threat themselves, the Time Lords brought together all three versions of the Doctor to battle Omega. His success bought him his freedom; the Time Lords restored his ability to travel in time and space.

Eventually the third Doctor died too, and a fourth version was born, consumed with a wanderlust that was likely a reaction to his previous self's period of enforced stability. He finally returned home, only to be accused of murdering the President of the High Council. In order to prevent his own execution he utilized a little remembered law and declared his intention to stand for the post himself; until the election was over he was protected by legislation put in place to prevent tyrants from murdering their rivals. But the killer turned out to be the other Presidential candidate, who died while trying to eliminate the Doctor. As the only surviving candidate, the Doctor won by default. Elected to the highest post in Gallifrey, the Doctor did the only thing he could; he ran. But even though he had deserted the post, the title remained his, as the Gallifreyans had no rules to cover this kind of eventuality.

Some time later, the Doctor was surprised when the TARDIS materialised without him setting the coordinates. He emerged to discover an unusual looking man who claimed he had summoned the ship with the powers of his mind to help in the hour of Earth's greatest need. They were in the far future, inside the last surviving stronghold of the light against the barbarian forces of Catavolcus. The castle would soon fall to the enemy, but the old man, who was subsequently called Merlin by one of the defenders, wanted to use the Doctor's TARDIS to evacuate the survivors before a nuclear device he had activated destroyed everything. Having armed the weapon, the two fled back to the time ship as Catavolcus' Neutron Knights pierced the castle wall. The Doctor hurried the retreating defenders into his ship, and they departed seconds before the castle and the attackers were vapourised. The Time Lord set the controls to take his passengers to a safe disembarkation spot, and then passed out. He awoke lying outside the TARDIS in some quiet woods, unsure if what he remembered was real or just a dream. But when he entered his ship, he was met by a vision of Merlin, who informed him that they would meet again, "in some distant time, in some other form."

Shortly after this the fourth Doctor faced his old enemy the Master once more, and was killed when he fell from the top of a radio telescope. He regenerated again, taking on a much younger looking form. Following many adventures the Doctor received a mysterious message from the Time Lords. At their behest, he dropped off his travelling companions, and checked into a bed and breakfast in the little English town of Stockbridge.

The Doctor was taking part in a local cricket match when a wave of temporal distortions started, mixing things from different time periods. The Doctor was about to bat, awaiting the bowler's throw, when the cricket ball was swapped for a grenade from the 1940's, which blew apart the wickets. Gunfire then drew the Doctor, a policeman and the other cricketers to a nearby lane, where a local man had discharged a shotgun to drive off attackers wielding swords. When the constable investigated the adjoining woods, he was attacked by a Roman legionary, who then turned on the Doctor. The Doctor deflected the blow with his cricket bat, and the man with the shotgun fired on the Roman, who vanished. Slipping away, the Doctor headed to the spot where he had hidden the TARDIS to check its instruments. Scanning the news channels confirmed that the effect was not localised, so the Doctor decided to collect his belongings from his lodgings and then try to track down the cause. But as he left the TARDIS he was attacked by a knight on horseback.

The Doctor dodged the charge, and the knight was unhorsed when his lance smashed against the TARDIS. The Doctor brought the unconscious man inside the TARDIS, and was in the process of removing his armour to check for injuries when he revived. The knight introduced himself as Sir Justin, and explained that he was snatched from the middle of a joust only to reappear bearing down on the Doctor. The Time Lord stated he would return Justin to his own time, but first he needed to deal with the cause of the temporal anomalies. Foreseeing a chance to perform great deeds, Justin happily agreed to accompany the Doctor. They travelled back to Gallifrey, were the Doctor still held the position of President. Once there the Doctor connected himself to the Matrix, a gigantic computer network containing the preserved memories of all the dead Time Lords, hoping it would help him deduce what was happening. As he did this, a strange shadow man materialised next to the TARDIS and entered the craft. Meanwhile the Doctor's virtual self found himself confronted by representations of Rassilon and two other great Time Lords. They were holding council with other "High Evolutionaries" from the Althrace system and with Merlin the Wise of Earth.

Merlin informed the Doctor that the being behind the time distortions was the demon Melanicus, a foe he banished from this plane of existence a thousand years ago. Melanicus had hijacked a device known as the Event Synthesiser which regulated the flow of time. Rassilon charged the Doctor with finding Melanicus and restoring the Synthesiser to its proper function. Returning to the real world, Justin and the Doctor made their way back to the TARDIS to begin their quest. Before they could take off however a beam penetrated Gallifrey's defenses and deposited an assassin inside the ship. As time slowed down for the Doctor and Justin, effectively paralysing them, the shadow man who breached the TARDIS earlier materialised behind the Time Lord and shot the assassin before he could carry out his deadly mission.

Released from the grip of the beam, the TARDIS was sent hurtling into the void by the beings in the Matrix, penetrating the domain of Melanicus. In a place where chaos and insanity reigned they initially found that the ship had materialised floating in a gigantic bathtub alongside a huge toy duck, before it next materialised inside a Hall of Mirrors. The Doctor and Justin emerged into the fairground beyond, where the Doctor spotted someone who looked like his old companion Zoe Herriot. He gave chase, following her into the Ghost Train. Convinced the girl might have an idea as to what was happening in this bizarre world, the Doctor jumped into one of the cars and continued his pursuit, unaware that the shadow man was sitting just behind him. The car proved to be on a rollercoaster track, taking the Doctor rapidly through an entrance marked "Door to Hell". On the other side they were surrounded by flames, and the Doctor realised they were heading straight towards the giant form of the demon Melanicus.

The Doctor was unsure as to whether or not the image before him was real. Meanwhile, back in the Matrix, the three Time Lords he encountered earlier at the council meeting decided to raise the manifestation level of their other agent. Suddenly the shadow man who had been dogging the Doctor's footsteps made his presence known, explaining that what the Doctor was facing was a vibratory illusion created by the Synthesiser, indistinguishable from the real thing and just as deadly. However the false Melanicus was no match for the shadow man's gun, and with it's destruction the Ghost Train car exited the fake hell. Seconds later it reached the end of the track, dropping the Doctor and his saviour from a great height.

Sir Justin had experienced his own worries since the Doctor rushed off, being attacked by a number of armoured men. He retreated into the Hall of Mirrors. At the same time the Doctor awakened, having been stunned by his impact on the ground. The shadow man at first appeared to have vanished, but in fact was hiding within the Doctor's own shadow. The Time Lord examined the room he was in, and accidentally knocked into a coffin laid out behind him. This drew the attention of the coffin's resident, a stereotypical vampiric count. Unimpressed by the Doctor's observation that "you represent a strictly mythical figure drawn largely from a work of Victorian fiction", the count advanced threateningly. But Justin spotted the Doctor being threatened through one of the mirrors in the Hall he was in, and smashed his way through to his ally. He drove the vampire off using the hilt of his sword as a cross, and the two friends rushed back into the TARDIS. Aware that he needed to follow the logic of the weird dimension they were in, the Doctor enquired of Justin as to exactly how many mirrors the knight had been forced to break to save him. Informed that it was four, the Doctor calculated as they take off that they were in for twenty-eight years of bad luck.

To avoid the bad luck, the Doctor slipped the TARDIS sideways into another dimension. Twenty-four hours passed for those inside, while outside twenty-eight years went by. During this time Melanicus caused over a thousand years of war to erupt across a thousand planets, with time zones mixing combatants wildly: the Millennium Wars. On Gallifrey in the Matrix Merlin consulted with the other High Evolutionaries. As yet Melanicus' limited understanding of the Event Synthesiser had restricted his damage to only a single dimension, but they feared he might discover how to spread the damage across a multitude of dimensions. If the Doctor could not locate the Synthesiser then the entire cosmos was threatened.

Back in the TARDIS the Doctor decided they must enter the maelstrom Melanicus had created and land as near to the Synthesiser as possible. The problem was that they had no way of knowing where that was at any given moment. A voice pointed out that it's position should be easy to calculate so long as you tooke into account the size of the Synthesiser and the fact that it didn't move; rather everything else moved in relation to it. The voice proved to be that of the shadow man, who introduced himself as Shayde. He explained that he was a mental construct who served the Matrix lords, and was sent to help the Doctor on his mission. While he explained this, the TARDIS picked up a reading, and when the Doctor checked the scanner he was greeted by an extraordinary sight - a crystalline craft composed of pure energy. The craft proved to belong to the Lords of Althrace, one of the groups of High Evolutionaries, who transported the travellers to Althrace, a set of joined planets spinning in the middle of a White Hole.

There the Lords explained the origins of Melanicus, informing the Doctor that the demon had been a native of Althrace. Fleeing to another dimension after an aborted attempt to conquer his home system, he managed to make contact with Catavolcus, then a third century despot. Catavolcus gave Melanicus access to another dimension, Earth's, and in return was given great power and the ability to traverse time. If Merlin had not intervened they would have conquered the Earth. Merlin banished Melanicus back to the dimension he had been hiding in, although Catavolcus remained free, roaming time and space and pillaging planets for their power...at least until he will one day be killed in the nuclear explosion the fourth Doctor nearly witnessed.

According to the Lords of Althrace, Melanicus had turned his full attention to the Earth. The Lords felt responsible, since it was they who first built the Event Synthesiser. Now they planned to unite the wills of all the High Evolutionaries across the galaxies, to stop time and allow the Doctor and Justin to face the villain.

With all time stopped the Doctor followed the coordinates he had now been given and landed the TARDIS on a devastated Earth. From the nearby ruins of a church, he and Justin could hear an organ playing. Inside they found the Event Synthesiser, and as the organist continued to play the ground around them erupted. Sir Justin splashed the face of the organist with a hat-full of Holy Water from the font, unmasking him as Melanicus. As the demon turned on his companion, the Doctor faced a fight of his own, when a cadaverous corpse rose from the ground and attempted to throttle him. Justin came to his rescue, but Melanicus had used the diversion to escape. The demon climbed the outside of the bell tower, only to find Shayde waiting for him at the top. The shadow being fired two precise shots, blinding the villain and causing him to plummet downwards. He saved himself by grabbing onto the edge of one of the windows as he fell, unaware that he was now visible to Justin and the Doctor. The young knight drew his sword and charged, smashing through the window to impale the beast on his weapon. A huge explosion of energy knocked the Doctor out, his last sight being the Event Synthesiser being commandeered by its rightful guardian. The Doctor awoke in the church, to find the damaged building whole once more. Justin was gone, and in his place the Doctor was dismayed to find only a statue in memory of his sacrifice. As the Doctor read the epitaph at its base and pondered who could have put it there, he was unaware of the spectre of Merlin standing behind him.

The Doctor's reverie was disturbed by a man in cricket gear who reminded the Doctor that it was his turn to bat, and he left the church, St Justinians, and returns to his game. His mind reeled from his recent experiences, and he noted that everything appeared the same as when things started, leaving him to wonder how much of it was real, or if it was all just a dream. Watching in the shadows at the edge of the green, Shayde was informed his mission was over, and he could return home to Gallifrey.

The Doctor resumed his travels, eventually picking up a new companion in the form of American airman Angus "Gus" Goodman.

The TARDIS landed on the planet Celeste. Gus had finally decided to end his travels with the Doctor, who was now trying to get his companion back home. The Doctor told Gus that it might take a while, but he would get them there, and Gus replies that he knew this; he had faith in the TARDIS. As they wandered away from the ship a ragged figure called out a warning to them, telling them to hide or the "Gaunts" would get them. Seconds later they were caught in the spotlight of an airship, and gunfire shattered the ground around them. Armoured men (Gaunts) move towards them, and Gus and the Doctor ran, only for their escape to be blocked by a perimeter wall. Just as the Gaunts were about to gun them down, the earth gave way beneath the travellers, dropping them into a tunnel that someone had been trying to dig under the wall. The Gaunts blocked the tunnel by bulldozing rubble into it, leaving the two friends below only one choice - they had to find the other end if they want to get out.

Making their way along the tunnel, the Doctor and Gus witnessed Gaunts herding men in chains, the enslaved miners. Heading a different way, they were confronted by a giant war 'droid, the Wrekka, who opened fire on them. This noise provided the chained miners a distraction and they turned on their captors. The Doctor and Gus fled back past the point where the miners had just overpowered the Gaunts, closely followed by the Wrekka. As the robot filled the tunnels with tear gas, the Doctor responded to a miner's call for help by grabbing a dropped pistol and shooting off the man's chains. This slight delay gave the Wrekka time to catch up, and the Doctor was knocked out by a stun grenade. The Wrekka loaded the unconscious Time Lord over it's shoulder, and herded the captive Gus in front of it. The two men were taken to the office of the owner of the mines, Josiah W. Dogbolter, a humanoid frog, where they were interrogated by Hob, Dogbolter's right-hand robot. When the Doctor's answers failed to please Hob, the little robot ordered the Wrekka to behead Gus. Faced with this threat the Doctor admitted they had arrived in a time machine, a revelation that drew the personal interest of Dogbolter.

Seeing the business opportunities inherent in time travel, Dogbolter demanded to buy the TARDIS. The Doctor refused, but Hob insisted, stating that Dogbolter would pay whatever price the Doctor wants. Hating to seem inflexible, the Doctor acquiesced: he would sell the TARDIS to Dogbolter in return for half a pound...of frogspawn. Dogbolter's fury began to rise, but before it could erupt the wall of his office was demolished as the rebelling miners smashed a giant bulldozer into the side of the building. In the confusion the Doctor and Gus made good their escape. The TARDIS' departure was witnessed by one of Dogbolter's engineers, who passes on a description to his employer. Dogbolter, not ready to give up, ordered the bounty hunter known as The Moderator to track down the Time Lord.

The Moderator caught up with the travellers just as they finally reached Gus' home time on Earth. Gus was making his farewells to his friend when the armoured mercenary raced into sight and opened fire. Gus shoved the Doctor aside, saving his friend's life, but suffered fatal injuries in his stead. He fired his service revolver at their attacker, whose armour, designed to deflect particles from energy weapons, proved completely useless against primitive lead bullets. The Moderator went down, but Gus died at the Doctor's side. The enraged Time Lord picked up Gus' gun, turned to the wounded bounty hunter...and fired two shots into the killer's dislodged headpiece, whose stuck radio had been pouring out a Vera Lynn song throughout. He then took the injured Moderator into the TARDIS and dropped the man off on the nearest planet capable of giving the alien medical treatment.

The Doctor returned to Stockbridge and collected the travelling companions he left behind when the Time Lords originally asked him to wait there. Unsurprisingly he failed to tell them about just how long he had really been gone, or the fact that he picked up two new travelling companions during that time, both of whom died whilst accompanying him. While other things distracted him from his hunt for the employer of the Moderator, he did not forget his desire to find out who was behind the death of his friend. He merely puts it on hold.

The Doctor continued his travels. Eventually he and his companion of the time, Peri, were exposed to a deadly poison. Only managing to get enough antidote for one of them, the Doctor, refusing to lose another friend, administered the cure to Peri, then regenerated. His new form was more brash and bombastic than the previous. After a shaky start he and Peri became firm friends.

Peri decided to take a break from the Doctor, and he returned her to modern day New York. Alone again, he turned his attention to finding out who was behind the Moderator.

The Doctor was on a sleazy alien world tracking down information on the Moderator. Deciding that he finally had enough information to confirm that it was Dogbolter who sent the bounty hunter after him, the Doctor returned to his ship, unaware that he had picked up a tail: a shapeshifting Whifferdill detective named Avan Tarklu was following him, hoping to claim the price on his head. Reaching the TARDIS, the Doctor was attacked by two assassins, also after the money. The Doctor managed to defeat one of them, but the second pulled a gun. Tarklu, unwilling to let someone else get the reward, knocked out the gunman, although in the darkness the Doctor failed to see what happened. Still unaware of the presence of the shapeshifter, the Doctor entered his ship and set the co-ordinates for Dogbolter's base on Venus, only to be caught by surprise when Tarklu revealed himself.

The Whifferdill demanded to be taken to Venus, which the Doctor pointed out was his destination anyway. But the Time Lord was still astonished to discover that he was to be turned in for the reward money, as Tarklu revealed how much his captive was worth to Dogbolter. A short while later the TARDIS landed on Venus atop Dogbolter's corporate headquarters. A note was dispatched from inside the craft which made it's way to Hob, who read it to his master. The note stated that the bounty-hunter was willing to deliver the Doctor in return for the reward money. Dogbolter agreed, eager for revenge (by this stage, acquiring the TARDIS had become secondary to dealing with its owner). The Doctor was ushered out of the TARDIS by a bizarre figure in a heavy trenchcoat, beard and low brimmed hat. The figure handed over his prisoner and took the money off of Hob. He then departed in the TARDIS, leaving his captive with the Gaunts. Much to the guards surprise the Doctor almost immediately vanished, as he was really the shapeshifter Tarklu (and the man in the concealing clothes was the real Doctor). He and the Doctor had reached a deal whereby both got what they wanted; Tarklu the money and the Doctor a measure of payback against Dogbolter. The Doctor returned to collect his new ally, and was dismayed to find that the Whifferdill has decided to hang around for a while.

The Doctor continued to journey with his new friend (who adopted the name Frobisher), eventually collecting Peri. Time passed and Peri departed the Doctor's company more permanently.

The Doctor had dropped Frobisher off at the Whifferdill's request, as the shapeshifter wanted to prove to himself he still had what it took to be a detective. Up to his beak in a case involving a mysterious item and with Dogbolter breathing down his neck, Frobisher repeatedly turned down help from his Time Lord friend, who kept popping back to try and convince his friend to resume their journeys together. Eventually, the case solved and Dogbolter thwarted once more, Frobisher rejoined the TARDIS crew.

Frobisher eventually left the Doctor. Much later he regenerated again, taking on his seventh form. This new incarnation at first seemed a clown in many respects, but it soon transpired that he was the most manipulative of all the Time Lord's personae, the one closest to being like the Other.

Travelling in the time vortex, the TARDIS collided with a large obstacle in it's path, forcing both to land. The bump attracted the attention of a Time Warden, who fled the second he saw what the TARDIS had hit. It was the giant form of the robot known as Death's Head, who picked up the Time Lord as if he were an insect when he emerged from within the vessel. The bounty hunter felt that the Doctor had gotten in his way, and when someone did that they either had to have something worth bargaining with him or die, yes? As he was about to pulverise the Doctor, the Time Lord located a Tissue Compression Eliminator he took from his old foe the Master. Although it was a nasty device which killed people by shrinking them to a fraction of their size, the Doctor decided that desperate situations called for desperate measures, and fired on Death's Head. The effect wasn't quite what he expected; Death's Head was shrunk down to human size, but not destroyed. As the much reduced robot pursued the fleeing Time Lord, the Time Warden again appeared, but departed once more when Death's Head made it clear that helping the Doctor would get him killed.

Having managed to get far enough ahead to stop for a breather, the Doctor realised he had something he could use to bargain with his mechanoid pursuer. He offered the time displaced robot the TARDIS and a demonstration on how to fly it. Death's Head agreed, but didn't trust the Doctor and insisted he accompanies the cyborg for the first trip. The Doctor programmed the ship for Earth in the year 8162, but when he activated the controls, it was only Death's Head who vanished. The Time Warden popped his head in the TARDIS door to see what happened, and the Doctor explained that he programmed the ship to lock on the nearest mechanical organism and send it through time. As the Time Warden departed, the Doctor wondered what Death's Head will do on Earth.

The Doctor picked up a distress signal coming from the planet Ryos. He set down to help, and discovered the person who activated the signal, a medic, but was unable to prevent her falling into in the clutches of the hostile natives. Indeed, he himself was spotted by the locals, and forced to flee as they pursued him riding on the backs of their giant steeds.

Luckily for the Doctor a space salvage merchant called Keepsake also picked up the signal, and with more profit oriented and less noble aims in mind, had also set down. Keepsake spotted the Doctor running from his pursuers, and took off before the Doctor could get on board. But the Time Lord was close enough to get swept up by one of the salvage ship's landing legs, and managed to hang on until Keepsake (who couldn't gain altitude and exit the atmosphere with someone weighing down the landing strut) landed. Once on the ground again, the Doctor introduced himself and roped the reluctant pilot into his rescue mission. They flew over the alien village and dropped detonators which exploded harmlessly above the huts, distracting the locals. While the Doctor skipped off the ship and rushed inside one of the buildings to find the captive medic, the reluctant Keepsake held off the natives for a few minutes. A little later, having successfully accomplished what he set out to do, the Doctor had Keepsake drop him off by the TARDIS, leaving the salvage man to return the extremely pretty, extremely greatful, female medic to civilisation.

The Doctor was taking part in a seaside pier pantomime playing the part of the jester when Death's Head materialised on the stage behind him. The mechanoid had been hired by Dogbolter to kill the Doctor and was using the ruthless businessman's new prototype time travel pack. Before he could fire on his target, a trap door beneath the robot dropped him into the basement, and the Doctor legged it. As Death's Head hunted through the theatre for his prey, the Doctor escaped disguised as the front end of a pantomime horse. He returnd to his TARDIS and set random co-ordinates, hoping that would lose his pursuer, but before he took off Death's Head materialised inside the ship. His arrival triggered the vessel's Geiger counter, leading the Doctor to conclude that the device on the bounty hunter's back was about to go nuclear. Death's Head realised that Dogbolter had set him up and forced the Doctor at gunpoint to take him back to Dogbolter's headquarters in the 82nd century. Once there he handed his gun over to the Doctor and told him to shoot off the straps that were holding the time pack / bomb to his back. That failed to work, but an attempt by the Doctor to pick the locks on the straps did. Death's Head threw the explosive device out of the TARDIS, and they departed just before it detonated. Dogbolter and Hob were caught in the blast. The Doctor dropped Death's Head off, and the mechanoid warned him they were quits now - next time he might kill the Time Lord. The Doctor, tired of the threats, gave him back his gun and informed DH he would need it, and all his other weapons, because the Doctor would not be easy to kill. Then he added that Death's Head was doomed, because the mechanoid was incapable of change. And with this he departed, leaving the robot wondering where the Doctor had deposited him. Unknown to the bounty hunter, he was atop Four's Freedom Plaza, the home of the Fantastic Four, on Earth-616. The Time Lord had dropped him off in another dimension.

A short while later the Doctor retrieved his (then) current companion, Ace, whom he had left dinosaur-spotting in the Cretaceous.

The Doctor had been trying to make it to Maruthea, a space-port at the centre of the space-time vortex, in order to attend his friend Bonjaxx's birthday party. As he landed another TARDIS was departing, with the Doctor in that craft having just expelled some penguins who were looking for a friend of theirs. The Doctor caught sight of the dematerialising ship, although Ace did not, and he commented to his friend that anything could happen here, and frequently did. They entered Bonjaxx's bar, where the Doctor greeted his old friend. As the Daemon bar owner put the Doctor's gift on a pile of identical ones (probably given by other incarnations of the Time Lord, as they were all identically wrapped), he informed the Doctor that someone was looking for him earlier. The Doctor glanced around the bar, which was filled with a large number of familiar faces (see comments). He and Ace sat down at a table, and the Doctor mused about who would know he was present. Ace suggested it might be Death's Head, who was sitting at a nearby table counting his money. Death's Head raised his glass in acknowledgement of the Doctor. Then Ace wondered if it might be a couple who were approaching where she and the Doctor were sitting. The Doctor turned to look, and after a few seconds, recognition hit him, and he said hello to his future self. Meanwhile Ace introduced herself to the other Doctor's companion, Ria. Before things could progress further an extremely drunk Beep the Meep arrived, looking for revenge. A brawl erupted, dragging almost everyone in bar into it. Everyone except the Doctor, who continued their conversation untouched by the chaos around them. As the fight started to wind down, the Doctor retrieved their companions, thanked Bonjaxx for the party, and walked out. Each Doctor returned to their respective TARDIS, just as the fourth incarnation of the Doctor arrived at the party, materialising his ship amidst the wreckage of the bar.

Unbeknownst to most at the party they were being observed by Hob, now a monstrous behemoth obsessed with finding Dogbolter and getting revenge of Death's Head and the Doctor for exposing him to the nuclear explosion that hurtled him out of time and space. Also watching were Death's Head and his own future (Minion) incarnation, both trapped in a virtual reality. The later Death's Head managed to escape the virtual reality and return to his own body, which was nearby. Now that the (seventh) Doctor had departed Hob attacked the original Death's Head, but the newer Death's Head came to his rescue, and together they managed to destroy Hob. The seventh Doctor returns, wiped the original Death's Head memory of meeting his future counterpart, and explained that it was he who sent the new Death's Head and his partner Tuck to Maruthea, to thwart Hob. The newer Death's Head was annoyed at being manipulated but let it go under the circumstances. The Doctor offered to buy him and Tuck a drink, but the cyborg bounty hunter passed. As he got ready to depart, the Doctor extended an offer to Tuck to look him up if she ever wanted a new partner. The Doctor watched as the two of them left, then helped the original Deaths' Head back up and suggested he attend a party - such as the one in Bonjaxx's bar.

The seventh incarnation of the Doctor finally met his end after a long series of adventures, and was reborn as a younger looking, less cynical individual. This eighth incarnation had a turbulent existence, experiencing a number of bouts of amnesia, having his history rewritten by the Faction Paradox, battling Rassilon, the founder of Time Lord society, and even destroying his own homeworld Gallifrey and virtually his entire species retroactively, so that they never existed, though he later reversed this and reinstated them.

However the Time Lords were subsequently caught up in a temporal war with the Daleks, which ended when the Doctor initiated an attack that burned the Daleks out of time at the cost of his own species wiped out too. Having not expected to survive, the Doctor instead found himself the last Time Lord (and regenerated, likely as a result of this final blow in the war). Though suffering from survivor's guilt, the Doctor continued doing the only thing he knew: saving the universe. A new companion, Rose Tyler, gradually managed to lighten his mood, even after he discovered the Daleks had survived and the loss of his own people had been in vain. He again sacrificed an incarnation, this time to save Rose, regenerating into his current, tenth, form.

In his tenth incarnation, his relationship with Rose became more intense, to the point where she admitted having fallen in love with him, though he was unable to express these feelings in return. An encounter with the Daleks and Cybermen in London in the early 21st century resulted in Rose being trapped in a parallel world, supposedly forever separated from the Doctor. Grief-stricken, the Doctor soldiered on, gaining a new companion in medical student Martha Jones who, like Rose, developed romantic feelings for the Doctor which were not reciprocated due to the Doctor still coming to terms with the loss of Rose. After Martha's departure, the Doctor began travelling with a pepetually unemployed temp from Chiswick named Donna Noble and finally began to accept his life and move on from Rose. During his travels with Donna, a genetic clone was created from a cell taken from his hand, the result being a daughter given the name Jenny by Donna; Jenny was subsequently shot and the Doctor believed her to be dead, although unknown to him she underwent a partial regeneration and began her own adventures. The Doctor soon after encountered Prof. River Song, a woman with intimate knowledge of the Doctor in the future -- to the extent that she knew his real name. Later, an attempt by Davros and his creations, the Daleks, to destroy the multiverse resulted in the Doctor being reunited not only with several past companions, but also with Rose Tyler.

During the ensuing battle against Davros, the Doctor nearly underwent a regeneration after being shot by a Dalek, but managed to stave off the event, although in the process a "clone" was created, but one with only one heart and no regenerative abilities. After the Daleks were destroyed, Rose and the clone Doctor -- at the original Doctor's behest -- returned to Rose's parallel earth and the Doctor returned to his own reality, only to immediately face the loss of Donna Noble. In the course of the battle, she was accidentally made part-Time Lord. The Doctor was forced to remove Donna's Time Lord abilities and her memories of travelling with him, as they would eventually kill her. He returned Donna to her mother and grandfather, and told them that they would have to make sure she never remembered the Doctor.

An unknown length of time after leaving Donna, the Doctor travelled to London, Christmas Eve 1851. The Doctor met a man calling himself 'the Doctor' and at first assumed him to be a future incarnation of himself. In reality, he was a Human man, Jackson Lake, who had the contents of an Infostamp about the Doctor imprinted on his brain. Jackson and his companion Rosita Farisi aided the Doctor in stopping the plot of the Cybermen and their ally, Mercy Hartigan. London was saved, Lake was reunited with his son, and invited the Doctor to share Christmas dinner with his new family (an offer which was at first denied, then accepted by the Doctor).

Sometime later, the Doctor travelled to London in 2009 at Easter, investigating strange readings on a bus. While he investigated, the bus was hurtled through a portal and reappeared on San Helios. On the bus he met yet another one-off companion, Christina de Souza, and embarked on a mission with her (and UNIT on the end of a phone) to return the bus and its occupants to Earth and stop the Swarm from invading. At the end of this adventure, just before leaving in the TARDIS, the Doctor rejected Christina's offer of companionship, stating that he has lost anyone who travels with him and he'd swore never again. Carmen, a low level psychic who aided during the adventure told the Doctor these chilling words.


 * "Your song is ending sir, It is returning. It is returning through the dark, oh but then...He will knock four times."

When Christina (who was a jewel thief) was arrested, the Doctor used his sonic screwdriver to aid her escape in the bus. Finally, when the Doctor was about to be arrested for helping Christina, he entered the "police box" to "arrest himself" and left.

At some point when he was travelling alone the Doctor crashed Sarah Jane Smith's wedding. He knew The Trickster, an old enemy of hers, would try and get his revenge on her after she had foiled the Trickster's previous attempts to cause chaos. Just as he got there, she and her future husband Peter Dalton were taken by the Trickster. He was teleported to a nether realm along with Rani, Luke and Clyde, whom he had heard all about from Sarah Jane. He fought the Trickster, who hinted about his next regeneration "The gate is waiting". The TARDIS gave Clyde the power to control Artron energy by mistake, so he could have defeated the Trickster, while the Doctor informed Sarah Jane what needed to be done. Peter, Sarah Jane's fiancé, sacrificed himself to destroy the Trickster, leaving Sarah Jane alone and heartbroken. When the world was put back to normal, the Doctor visited 13 Bannerman Road and let Sarah Jane and her friends look inside TARDIS, after which he said farewell while sincerely asking Sarah Jane to never forget him.

The Doctor, deciding to go to the planet Mars, met the crew of Bowie Base One, including Adelaide Brooke who served as his companion for a short time. He knew of the crew of Bowie Base, and that everyone would die, as it was one of the most important events in the expansion of Humanity through the universe. He learnt that the crew died due to a water-based sentient viral species, which possessed six of them. Initially unwilling to interfere due to his belief that the event was a fixed point in time, he changed course once he remembered the deaths he had lived through and what it had left him with. He saved Adelaide, Mia and Yuri and took them back to Earth 2059. Adelaide was angry at the Doctor's interference, and scolded him for thinking himself above obeying history's course (her death meant that her granddaughter would be inspired to go explore the stars). Adelaide then walked into her home, apparently having given up trying to defy the Doctor, but committed suicide. The Doctor's memories of the day's events changed to fit in with the new timeline created. Distraught at the impossibility of his task of changing history, he began to ponder his own end when a vision of Ood Sigma appeared before him. As he entered the TARDIS, the Cloister Bell rang. With a defiant "No!" he activated the TARDIS.

At some point after leaving 2059, the Doctor visited America, 1958. While there, he visited a diner, meeting Cassie Rice and Jimmy Stalkingwolf. The Doctor examined a piece of "space junk" from the Roswell Crash eleven years ago. He accidentally activated it, drawing the attention of the android Mister Dread. Escaping, the Doctor, Cassie and Jimmy were then attacked by a Viperox battle drone, which was promptly blown up by the United States military. The three were then taken to Area 51. They encountered Colonel Stark, who dismissed the Doctor's warnings about the Viperox, and attempted to have the Doctor and his companions mind-wiped. The attempt was unsuccessful, and the trio soon escaped, discovering a small grey alien along the way. They escaped to the town of Solitude and took shelter in a deserted building. Jimmy was then kidnapped by the Viperox, forcing the Doctor and Cassie to follow. They found Jimmy in the presence of a Viperox Queen before escaping into the desert, where they were confronted by four members of the Alliance of Shades who are destroyed by Jimmy's father, Night Eagle, who took them to Rivesh Mantilax, the husband of Seruba Velak, the grey alien captive in Area 51. Colonel Stark then captured them all and took them back to Area 51. They Doctor then ran off with the "space junk" - actually a weapon capable of destroying the Viperox. He was cornered on the roof by the Colonel, but convinced him to turn against the Viperox. The Viperox then invaded America but were beaten back by the Doctor. He departed soon after, leaving Cassie and Jimmy with a suggestion to start dating.

After meeting with the Ood on their home planet, he learned of the Master's impending resurrection on Earth, and raced to stop it, only to arrive too late. After discovering the the Master living in the wastelands of London, he tried to confront him, only to reunite with the grandfather of Donna Noble, Wilfred Mott, who had found him with the help of the "Sliver Cloak". They then went to a London Cafe, where the Doctor informed Wilf that it had been prophesised that the Doctor would soon die. The Doctor left shorty after seeing Donna, who was engaged to a man named Shaun Temple. At night, the Doctor, tracked down the Master once again, who stunned him with lightning from his hands, and forced him to listen to the "Drums" in the Master's head, which the Doctor realised was real, and not just a symptom of the Master's insanity. Soon after, the Master was abducted by Joshua Naismith's private army. The next morning the Doctor contacted Wilf, who informed him of Naismith and went with him in the TARDIS to the Naismith Mansion. In the mansion's basement, the Doctor used the sonic screwdriver to unveil two Vinvocci, called Addams and Rossiter who inform him of the purpose of the Immortality Gate, alien device Naismith had acquired and forced the Master to repair. Addams and Rossiter revealed that it can "heal" an entire species on a planet using a specific template. The Doctor rushed in to stop the Gate's activation, but was unable to stop the Master turning the entire human race in copies of himself - the "Master Race".

Held captive by the Master, along with Wilf, the Doctor attempted to reason with the Master, who realised that with six billion people now hearing the drums, he could trace it to its source. Wilf and the Doctor, were then rescued by the Vinvocci, who took them to their ship, which the Doctor then took offline to stop the Master finding them. Whilst trying to repair the ship (under the pretense of "fixing the heating"), Wilf tried to give him his gun, which the Doctor initially refused to take but relented when an object appears in space lands on Earth which was identified by the Master as a White Point Star - a diamond found only on Gallifrey. Realising the Master had the means to bring back the Time Lords, he piloted the Vinvocci ship back towards the Naismith Manor, dodging missiles, intent on crashing into the Naismith Mansion. However, he changed his mind, and armed with Wilf's gun, jumped from the ship and crashed through the glass roof. However, he was unable to stop the Master from using the Star and the signal from the drums to create a link to Gallifrey, which allowed Rassilon along with a few other Time Lords to appear in the Immortality Gate.

Rassilon quickly undid the Master's conversion of the Human race and proclaimed him a disease, as Gallifrey appeared next to Earth. The Doctor then revealed exactly why allowing the Time Lords to return was wrong. Opening the "Time Lock" that held them would allow not just the Time Lords to return, but also the Daleks and every other faction in the Time War, turning the universe into a living hell. As well as this, the Time Lords, in their mindsets warped by the war, had devised a plan to destroy the Time Vortex and ascend to a state of pure consciousness as the whole space-time continuum came undone. The Doctor then grabbed the gun and was conflicted over whether to kill the Master - who is part of the link or Rassilon, who created the plan in the first place. Upon seeing a familiar face behind Rassilon, he shot the White Point Star, severing the link, causing Gallifrey and the Time Lords to return to their proper time. Rassilon then tried to kill the Doctor, but the Doctor was saved by the Master, who used his powers to fight Rassilon and sacrificed himself as the Time Lords return to the last day of the Time War.

The Doctor realised he has survived. In the moment he finally felt safe, he heared four knocks (the sound that would foreshadow his death) and it was Wilf, trapped inside a radiation control booth which was about to be flooded with radiation. Despite his own anger and Wilf's pleas to leave him, he released Wilf, and receives a fatal level of radiation, sacrificing himself. Although initially unharmed, the regenerative process began. After dropping Wilf off, the Doctor told him that he'd appear one last time, and left in the TARDIS, to get his "reward": He visited several companions and people had encountered as the tenth Doctor. His final visit was to the Powel Estate, on January 1st of 2005, where he briefly encountered Rose Tyler, before she had met him, and told her that she would have a "really great year". Soon after, the pain of regeneration set in and the Doctor collapsed in the street. Ood Sigma then appeared and told him that while his song was ending, his story never would, and that the universe would sing for him. Reaching the TARDIS, he piloted it into orbit around Earth. At last, the Doctor finally regenerated for the tenth time, taking on his youngest looking form to date.

A little while later, the Doctor (in his eleventh incarnation) took on a new companion: a human female named Amy Pond. With Amy at his side, the Doctor continues to travel through time and space.

Height: Variable Weight: Variable Eyes: Variable Hair: Variable Other distinguishing features: Two hearts, respiratory bypass

Strength level: Normal strength of an adult Gallifreyan male who engages in moderate regular exercise.

Known superhuman powers: As with other Gallifreyans, the Doctor is physically superior to normal humans in nearly ever respect, though not generally superhumanly so. He is slightly stronger than his appearance would suggest, has greater stamina and better than average agility. His senses are also slightly keener than a humans, and he is capable of noticing ripples in the patterns of time. He is capable of surviving without oxygen for short periods of time, and can even survive unprotected in the vacuum of space for several minutes. Among the more obvious physical differences between his body and that of a human is that he has two hearts. He is capable of healing most wounds given time, even regrowing severed appendages on occasion (although this can take weeks). If he suffers an injury so severe that he cannot survive then he is able to completely regenerate his body, taking on a entirely new form (based on examples of other Time Lords seen regenerating, even decapitation might not be fatal; severe injury to both hearts, however, would be). Doing so causes near fatal mental strain, and as a result he generally suffers a period of mental instability thereafter, which in the past has manifested as amnesia, mood swings, and even full blown psychotic episodes; in the end his mind settles down again, but in every instance his personality is altered by the experience. Perhaps due to the strain this imposes, Time Lords can only regenerate twelve times, allowing them a total of thirteen bodies.

The Doctor is moderately telepathic, another of his species' gifts. He cannot read minds, but is capable of communicating with other telepathic beings. Boosted by his TARDIS, this telepathy is able to act as an instant translator of virtually all spoken or written languages, a gift which is extended to those who travel with him; it is so effective that those using the gift are generally not even conscious of the fact that they shouldn't be able to understand the alien tongues they are listening to. Time Lords can recognise one another by their telepathic signature even when they have changed their appearances, unless one of them is deliberately masking who they are.

Other abilities: The Doctor's greatest ability is his intellect. He is vastly more intelligent than any human, with extensive knowledge of most sciences, and an extremely quick and adaptive mind. He is resistant to forms of mental coercion such as hypnosis, brainwashing, mind control or mind probes. Trips into his mindscape has shown that each of his earlier persona's still survives there, acting as keepers of their portions of his memories and aspects of his personality (the fifth incarnation is generally seen as the conscience of the later Doctors, for example). Future personalities have also seen to form in this mindscape, in preparation for impending regeneration - for example the Doctor's seventh persona is widely believed to have deliberately usurped the body and forced a regeneration after his sixth body suffered a minor head injury. Combined with their telepathic ability, some Time Lords can give these future forms a level of physical presence in the real world separate from their main body; the Doctor himself has demonstrated this ability on two occasions, once when he subconsciously created a poorly defined "Watcher" entity just prior to his fourth regeneration, and once when a distilled composite of all his evil and less noble traits broke loose and became the being known as the Valeyard. All incarnations of the Doctor have been seen to be skilled hypnotists too, and most have displayed a talent for disguise and mimicry.

The Doctor is a brilliant engineer, well known for his ability to build a device for any circumstances he encounters. If what he needs is not to hand he often jury-rigs temporary equipment to combat the evils he comes across. His most common tool (other than his TARDIS) is the sonic screwdriver, which can be adapted to a number of uses, most commonly to open locked doors of all varieties. It has also been seen to remotely detonate mines and swamp gas, to repel creatures with sensitive hearing, and even to remove screws. The Doctor stores a variety of useful objects in his pockets, which he has finally admitted have an extra dimension sewn into them, making them much bigger on the inside.

Each version of the Doctor has certain abilities and skills peculiar only to that regeneration. The third was a master of unarmed combat, in particular Venusian Aikido, a talent he achieved without any training. The seventh could disrupt the brain's electrons with a touch, allowing him to render people unconscious. The eighth has the ability to read the patterns of time, allowing him to pull out hints about a person's past or future from their timeline.

While the Doctor normally disdains physical violence, he has shown himself in the past to be a skilled swordsman (at least from his fourth incarnation on), having been trained by one of Cleopatra's guards. He is an expert with a crossbow (trained with William Tell), and even his first, elderly form was an able fighter, having learned wrestling from the Mountain Mauler of Montana.

Equipment: Sonic Screwdriver. This innocent-looking device is the Doctor's favorite tool. He can reprogram it to manipulate sound and matter in nearly infinite combinations.

The Type 40 TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space) is a space-time vessel, capable of travelling to any place or time. Its most distinguishing feature is that it's 'dimensionally transcendental' - bigger on the inside than on the outside, because the interior of the TARDIS is actually an extradimensional space. The craft that materialises when the Doctor's TARDIS 'lands' is actually the portal between the pocket universe that is the TARDIS and the main universe. Because this outer appearance is merely a door to another universe, it is nearly invulnerable under normal circumstances, and the inside of the TARDIS can be disconnected from the exterior to prevent gravity or other outside forces from affecting the interior. The ship travels by dematerialising in one spot, traversing the time vortex, and then rematerialising at its destination; although it is capable of conventional space travel. The TARDIS comes equipped with a Chameleon Circuit, which should disguise the ship as something inconspicuous whenever it lands somewhere new. However the Chameleon Circuit broke just after the Doctor landed in 1960s London, leaving the exterior of the TARDIS in the form of a blue police box.