Howling:How does the Doctor refuel after Big Bang 2?

The Doctor explained a few times in the first four seasons of the new series that he has to power the TARDIS by absorbing energy from time rifts.

But, at least according to RTD, when the Doctor closed the cracks last season, that also closed all of the rifts (which is why Torchwood has no reason to go back to their old location).

So, how does the Doctor power the TARDIS now?

I've got some theories, but none of them seem that compelling:
 * 1) RTD's not the boss anymore; the Moff could just say, "Ignore that crazy guy in America, of course the rifts are still around, and that's how the Doctor powers the TARDIS."
 * 2) When the TARDIS regenerated itself between The End of Time and The Eleventh Hour, it changed its power source, either because she knew the rifts were going to close in a year, or because she just thought the rifts were inconvenient and she'd wanted to change it ever since the end of Gallifrey but hadn't gotten a chance.
 * 3) When Amy remembered the Doctor and the TARDIS back into existence in The Big Bang, because she didn't know about the rift power, it ended up with something different.
 * 4) During the season break, the Doctor solved the problem in some way that wasn't interesting enough for the Moff to mention.
 * 5) Power is a problem, but the Doctor's got bigger problems to worry about (his death, the Silence, Melody being kidnapped, etc.), so he's putting it off for later.
 * 6) Power is a problem, but the Doctor doesn't realize it yet; he's got half a tank, and he won't notice that there are no more rifts until it's time to refuel.
 * 7) This last one seems beyond implausible and into ridiculous territory, but for completeness: In the later EDAs, a godlike echo of the Master had been secretly powering the TARDIS from within the link, just to get the Doctor to the lowest point possible. In the last novel, he finally did so. Except most of that last novel must have been erased by the cracks (the Vore invasion of 2005 certainly couldn't be covered up), so maybe the Master's echo is still powering the TARDIS until the time is right to reveal himself.

As I said, none of these seem that great to me. My guess is that Moffat hasn't come up with an answer, and he won't worry about it until he's got a good story idea that involves refueling the TARDIS, at which point we'll learn that there was enough fuel to get to that episode but it was just about to run out (#5 or #6)… Either that, or he'll never deal with it, and at some point Justin Richards or some other NSA writer will casually mention a stopover at a rift in an 11/Amy/Rory story (#1). --173.228.85.35 08:33, August 22, 2011 (UTC)

Could be 5. Remember in The Doctor's Wife, House had to eject 30% of the rooms to get back into the main universe. Of course, the TARDIS could have later got some energy back by eating House and absobing his Artron energy. 186.212.128.73 11:05, August 22, 2011 (UTC)

The most likely explanation is probably number 1, but I doubt that Moffat will ever actually bring it up. The rift is similar to the kind of crack that the vampires and Prisoner Zero went through, but they still don't seem to be the same thing. The Cardiff rift has been around for much longer than the cracks have been, and the Doctor never seemed very disturbed by its existance. RTD really only has to worry about Torchwood now, and how the TARDIS is powered isn't really his problem. He wanted a reason why it was OK for Torchwood to leave Cardiff, so he came up with one. Since the only time the Doctor ever actually went to refuel the TARDIS was when they needed a plot reason for him to be in Cardiff anyway, I doubt that it will ever be brought up.Icecreamdif 20:01, August 22, 2011 (UTC)

Actually, RTD's behind-the-scenes comment seems to have been superseded by the latest Radio 4 Torchwood drama The House of the Dead, At in which the ghost of Ianto sealed the Cardiff Rift at some point in 2010, apparently before Big Bang 2 even happened. That means RTD no longer has any interest in the rifts in general being closed, which makes it even easier for Moffat to ignore his earlier comments.

However, I absolutely love the idea that the TARDIS ate House. Or maybe, to fit better with Gaiman's intentions (e.g., http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2011/may/16/neil-gaiman-doctor-who-doctors-wife?commentpage=2#comment-10776824), she just stole all of his energy and left him floating in space as a starving disembodied essence. --173.228.85.35 06:05, August 23, 2011 (UTC)

A beautiful case of "the biter bitten"! --2.96.18.38 06:53, August 23, 2011 (UTC)

To quote Alfred Harmsworth, "When a dog bites a man, that is not news, because it happens so often. But when a TARDIS bites an asteroid, that is news." --173.228.85.35 07:40, August 23, 2011 (UTC)

Well, I would imagine that any real energy that House has would be back in his asteroid body, and House was just using the TARDIS' power once he took over there. It is still possible though that the TARDIS was able to somehow take energy from House, but it wouldn't last indefinetly. I guess that still means that they can put the problem off for another few centuries, anyway.Icecreamdif 23:33, August 23, 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, and a couple centuries is enough to get them to the future Doctor's death, which is a bigger problem to deal with anyway.

And without that couple centuries: if the TARDIS didn't have enough energy to get back to the universe without jettisoning 30% of its rooms, how much power could it possibly have left now? It must have either drained House, or recharged in some other way, because the Doctor is still gallivanting all over space and time.

But after The House of the Dead, my suspicion is that everyone (including RTD) is just going to ignore RTD's comments; the Cardiff Rift was already gone before the cracks, and the rest of them are still there, so there's no problem to deal with in the first place. --173.228.85.35 03:51, August 24, 2011 (UTC)