Ok how'd they get into that ship?

[senko]

Just rewatched the lodger. Attempt at a TARDIS perched on the roof, perception filter makes people think there's a second floor etc all fine and good buuutt. . .  there's stairs inside leading up to a door that enters its control room then when it implodes there's an intact roof and we get a brief glimpse of it being perched on it with legs not part of it when the perception field goes down. So how did it manage to create inside stairs and a door that was both there and not there at the same time?

Just a random bit of pondering here I've a few ideas using the show as a source to explain it but I'm intereseted in what others think.

[misterharry]

Aug 20, 2016 11:52:04 GMT senko said:

Just rewatched the lodger. Attempt at a TARDIS perched on the roof, perception filter makes people think there's a second floor etc all fine and good buuutt. . .  there's stairs inside leading up to a door that enters its control room then when it implodes there's an intact roof and we get a brief glimpse of it being perched on it with legs not part of it when the perception field goes down. So how did it manage to create inside stairs and a door that was both there and not there at the same time?

Just a random bit of pondering here I've a few ideas using the show as a source to explain it but I'm intereseted in what others think.

As it's stolen technology based on TARDISes, going up the stairs is like entering the TARDIS doors - you pass into a different dimension, which in the case of the ship in The Lodger is somehow superimposed on the real-world attic.

[senko]

That's just it there is no attic. If the ship was overlaying the original roof like the doctor overlaid the TARDIS on a police box at one point in the old series I wouldn't have given it a second thought. What we have here is . . .

Ship
Legs
Roof (Intact)
Flat

With the filter in place its . . .

Second Floor
Stairs
Flat

That is the roof effectively dissapears and you have stairs leading up from the entry floor to a door leading into the alien ship. Now having the stairs go up far enough to bypass the legs and get you to the ship is fine but either way your passing through the roof which the ship is perched on.

Not the best images but

Outside of flat with filter.


Inside of flat with filter.


Outside of flat without filter.


You can clearly see its perching on the roof not overlaid with it and there is no way to get into that ship. Not to mention the door at the top of the stairs is at right angles to the ship as well its SHIP | when it should be SHIP -.

[misterharry]

Like I said, the ship is based on Time Lord technology. The stairs are a dimensional gateway in the same way as the TARDIS's doors are. It's just that in this case, they take you to the interior of the ship, even though the house and the ship are not physically linked.

As for the interior of the ship resembling an attic - and I'm thinking on my feet here - that's the brain still trying to make sense of the perception filter's distortions.

[senko]

So the ships actual entrance is at A while the stairs inside the house are at C and by entering the "doorway" at C you bypass B entirely going straight to A since its entrance is located at A and C simultaneously?

[misterharry]

Yes - point B is entirely illusory, a product of the perception filter. Well, that's my take on it.

[Catsmate]

Aug 21, 2016 16:56:56 GMT misterharry said:

Aug 20, 2016 11:52:04 GMT senko said:

Just rewatched the lodger. Attempt at a TARDIS perched on the roof, perception filter makes people think there's a second floor etc all fine and good buuutt. . .  there's stairs inside leading up to a door that enters its control room then when it implodes there's an intact roof and we get a brief glimpse of it being perched on it with legs not part of it when the perception field goes down. So how did it manage to create inside stairs and a door that was both there and not there at the same time?

Just a random bit of pondering here I've a few ideas using the show as a source to explain it but I'm intereseted in what others think.

As it's stolen technology based on TARDISes, going up the stairs is like entering the TARDIS doors - you pass into a different dimension, which in the case of the ship in The Lodger is somehow superimposed on the real-world attic.

Perhaps something like an Atrium Circuit?

Aug 22, 2016 8:08:57 GMT senko said:

So the ships actual entrance is at A while the stairs inside the house are at C and by entering the "doorway" at C you bypass B entirely going straight to A since its entrance is located at A and C simultaneously?

Yep. Some of the Doctor's TARDIS's interior doors do tricks like this, IIRR in The Invasion of Time.

[senko]

Sorry I think I'm making my point badly let me try one more time then I'll let it drop.

At point A the building courtyard we have the Tardis with its 2 blue seemingly wooden doors. At point B we have a solid wall no holes, gaps or other ways to get through. At point C inside the building we have a stairwell. If you go up the stair well you enter the TARDIS by going in the wrong direction and entering a "doorway" that is physically seperated from the ship by a solid barrier. That is I'm not objecting to the different dimension part of it where I'm having difficulty is that the ship and its different dimension entrance are not only in different places but actually have a physical, solid barrier between them so the ship would have to be projecting said entrance into another area that is not only sperate from said ship but has an actual physical barrier between the two. That is the Tardis is parked on Leicester square in London but its doors are in the Taja Mahal in India and by entering them you enter the TARDIS.

[cigarman]

I believe this is called a "plot device" . An amazing device which allows writers and GMs to set things up that help the plot, even if they do not make perfect sense when closely examined. LOL

[senko]

Such as the magical phone that calls someone in a relative time progression (1 day for you is 1 day for them) till your both in a somewhat near relationship (you show up a year after you last talked to them) I suppose. What if you go back a day before do you dial them tommorow (present) or that earlier day, what happens if you go forward a year, meet them then go back a month and call them? SOooo many issues with that particular plot device.

[misterharry]

Aug 22, 2016 22:29:12 GMT senko said:

Sorry I think I'm making my point badly let me try one more time then I'll let it drop.

At point A the building courtyard we have the Tardis with its 2 blue seemingly wooden doors. At point B we have a solid wall no holes, gaps or other ways to get through. At point C inside the building we have a stairwell. If you go up the stair well you enter the TARDIS by going in the wrong direction and entering a "doorway" that is physically seperated from the ship by a solid barrier. That is I'm not objecting to the different dimension part of it where I'm having difficulty is that the ship and its different dimension entrance are not only in different places but actually have a physical, solid barrier between them so the ship would have to be projecting said entrance into another area that is not only sperate from said ship but has an actual physical barrier between the two. That is the Tardis is parked on Leicester square in London but its doors are in the Taja Mahal in India and by entering them you enter the TARDIS.

I'm not entirely sure I understand your point. If we're talking about dimensional engineering, then a physical barrier between the ship and its entrance is not a problem. The TARDIS interior may well exist it its own pocket dimension completely separate from the physical universe that its external doors exist in. A mere wall isn't going to be an issue for that level of technology.

[misterharry]

Aug 23, 2016 6:06:38 GMT senko said:

Such as the magical phone that calls someone in a relative time progression (1 day for you is 1 day for them) till your both in a somewhat near relationship (you show up a year after you last talked to them) I suppose. What if you go back a day before do you dial them tommorow (present) or that earlier day, what happens if you go forward a year, meet them then go back a month and call them? SOooo many issues with that particular plot device.

Well, travelling in time and using a standard mobile phone (assuming you still have a connection of course) would end up with very similar issues. It's just another example of the complications inherent in time travel.

[senko]

The difference is a standard phone merely calls the time your in e.g. 1990 you dial the number in 1990, 991 you dial in 991 (and get no serice) this one you dial in 1990 and might (depending on how people interpret it) get 1990 (time you dial from) or 2013 (time you dialed to). I know why they did it but it complicated things that weren't simple to begin with.

My point is the ship is not overlaid over the building its perched on it and the steps are an entrance projected into another location. Just seems a bit a design that is unnecessarily complicated. The door is on the ship and in the main corridor at the same time. Of course the idea of parking your TARDIS in Australia and having the exit be in a hotel in Japan does offer some interesting plot possibilities (maybe a range limited like the special clairvoyance only using a different stat).

EDIT
You know what in my attempts to explain this to you I've finally hit on why it was giving me so many problems. It was the fact it was described as an attempt to build a TARDIS and I was unconciously interpreting that as TARDIS exoshell has to be in one piece so it can't have most of it at point A and a completely seperate piece at point B. However its not a TARDIS its an attempt to build something similar but that doesn't mean it is exactly the same e.g. it has a perception filter but no shifting ability (from what we see of it) so there's no reason it couldn't be teleporting its main entrance into a seperate location since its not required to be all of a piece. Even if it was there was that desk earlier where the doors came off and could still be used as well.

Ok I think I'm happy with this thanks for helping me sort this out.

[Catsmate]

Aug 23, 2016 2:15:00 GMT cigarman said:

I believe this is called a "plot device" . An amazing device which allows writers and GMs to set things up that help the plot, even if they do not make perfect sense when closely examined. LOL

Well yes, but this is a RPG question too, where some degree of consistency is nice.

[Catsmate]

Aug 22, 2016 22:29:12 GMT senko said:

Sorry I think I'm making my point badly let me try one more time then I'll let it drop.

At point A the building courtyard we have the Tardis with its 2 blue seemingly wooden doors. At point B we have a solid wall no holes, gaps or other ways to get through. At point C inside the building we have a stairwell. If you go up the stair well you enter the TARDIS by going in the wrong direction and entering a "doorway" that is physically seperated from the ship by a solid barrier. That is I'm not objecting to the different dimension part of it where I'm having difficulty is that the ship and its different dimension entrance are not only in different places but actually have a physical, solid barrier between them so the ship would have to be projecting said entrance into another area that is not only sperate from said ship but has an actual physical barrier between the two. That is the Tardis is parked on Leicester square in London but its doors are in the Taja Mahal in India and by entering them you enter the TARDIS.

Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Something like a transmat portal could manage this, though I don't recall this appearing in Who.

Aug 23, 2016 6:06:38 GMT senko said:

Such as the magical phone that calls someone in a relative time progression (1 day for you is 1 day for them) till your both in a somewhat near relationship (you show up a year after you last talked to them) I suppose. What if you go back a day before do you dial them tommorow (present) or that earlier day, what happens if you go forward a year, meet them then go back a month and call them? SOooo many issues with that particular plot device.

Yes, translating between a TV series with poor continuity and consistency and an RPG (where they're desirable) can be annoying.

[Catsmate]

Aug 23, 2016 6:59:28 GMT misterharry said:

Aug 23, 2016 6:06:38 GMT senko said:

Such as the magical phone that calls someone in a relative time progression (1 day for you is 1 day for them) till your both in a somewhat near relationship (you show up a year after you last talked to them) I suppose. What if you go back a day before do you dial them tommorow (present) or that earlier day, what happens if you go forward a year, meet them then go back a month and call them? SOooo many issues with that particular plot device.

Well, travelling in time and using a standard mobile phone (assuming you still have a connection of course) would end up with very similar issues. It's just another example of the complications inherent in time travel.

Putting on my physicist hat for a moment, there's an old saying: "Relativity, causality, faster-than-light; pick two". It's extremely difficult to reconcile faster-than-light information transfer with both causality (cause precedes effect) and relativity (which is well supported by evidence).
But then a universe without causality is a rather interesting one...

[Catsmate]

Aug 23, 2016 7:51:27 GMT senko said:

The difference is a standard phone merely calls the time your in e.g. 1990 you dial the number in 1990, 991 you dial in 991 (and get no serice) this one you dial in 1990 and might (depending on how people interpret it) get 1990 (time you dial from) or 2013 (time you dialed to). I know why they did it but it complicated things that weren't simple to begin with.

My point is the ship is not overlaid over the building its perched on it and the steps are an entrance projected into another location. Just seems a bit a design that is unnecessarily complicated. The door is on the ship and in the main corridor at the same time. Of course the idea of parking your TARDIS in Australia and having the exit be in a hotel in Japan does offer some interesting plot possibilities (maybe a range limited like the special clairvoyance only using a different stat).

EDIT
You know what in my attempts to explain this to you I've finally hit on why it was giving me so many problems. It was the fact it was described as an attempt to build a TARDIS and I was unconciously interpreting that as TARDIS exoshell has to be in one piece so it can't have most of it at point A and a completely seperate piece at point B. However its not a TARDIS its an attempt to build something similar but that doesn't mean it is exactly the same e.g. it has a perception filter but no shifting ability (from what we see of it) so there's no reason it couldn't be teleporting its main entrance into a seperate location since its not required to be all of a piece. Even if it was there was that desk earlier where the doors came off and could still be used as well.

Ok I think I'm happy with this thanks for helping me sort this out.

I always assumed that the exterior and interior were entirely different pocket universes with only a gateway connecting them; it seemed to work. A device like an atrium circuit (or even the old chameleon circuit) merely redefined the appearance of the exterior shell (via Block Transfer Computation).

[senko]

That's largely how I saw it but until recently I thought that chameleon circuit had to create something all of one piece not one bit here and another bit in Alpha Centuri. Of course in the current series the interior is not as much of a seperate universe given how it shakes when the outside is moved rather than just when something goes wrong.

[Stormcrow]

For all we know, the TARDIS shakes its interior whenever its exterior shakes just to provide its occupants a corresponding subjective experience. After all, it normally spins while in flight, but the interior doesn't spin.

[Catsmate]

Actually the whole extra-dimensional bits/teleportals rather reminds me of the Ancients in Traveller, who used such technology a lot. I was reviewing the Mongoose adaption of the old Secrets of the Ancients campaign over the weekend, it's available for free, a 202 page ebook with lots of ideas that could be looted.

[senko]

Aug 23, 2016 11:51:52 GMT Stormcrow said:

For all we know, the TARDIS shakes its interior whenever its exterior shakes just to provide its occupants a corresponding subjective experience. After all, it normally spins while in flight, but the interior doesn't spin.

 I could do without that kind of experience thanks. I'll stick with the old series shaking = bad things.

Catsmate
Thanks I"ll take a look at that.