| abstract | - The cracks were described by the Eleventh Doctor as "two parts of space and time that should never have touched, pressed together". They were present in the very fabric of spacetime — a crack that appeared to be part of a wall would still be there if the wall were removed. (TV: The Eleventh Hour) They were also described as "cracks in the skin of the universe." (TV: The Pandorica Opens) According to Rosanna Calvierri, the cracks ranged in size from tiny to "as big as the sky", and some connected to other worlds, while others led only to "silence, and the end of all things". (TV: The Vampires of Venice) Some cracks acted like wormholes and could be opened to allow a passage between the places on either side. Rosanna Calvierri and her family travelled through a crack of this kind, (TV: The Vampires of Venice) as did Prisoner Zero. (TV: The Eleventh Hour) A sonic screwdriver could widen a crack, and if a crack was open wide enough, the forces would invert, and the crack would snap itself shut. (TV: The Eleventh Hour) Other cracks released pure time energy able to wipe individuals from time itself and remove events from history. Time travellers such as the Doctor would still remember them, at least so long as the removed event or person did not relate to the time traveller's direct past. (TV: Flesh and Stone, Cold Blood) Also, when the time energy erased people and events, the consequences would still remain: the Byzantium remained crashed when the Weeping Angels who had caused it were erased; Amelia Pond still existed when her parents were erased from history, as did River Song when her father met the same fate. (TV: Flesh and Stone, Cold Blood, The Big Bang) This time energy was visible as a glow of bright white light, which sometimes extended tendrils from the crack towards nearby people and objects to consume them. Although it would be common sense to run away from this, the Clerics were stupid enough to go right towards it and investigate. (TV: Cold Blood, Flesh and Stone) The Doctor guessed that the time energy from these kind of cracks had erased events such as the CyberKing walking over London in the Victorian era, and the 2009 Dalek invasion of Earth, the latter being one of Earth's most publicly visible invasions. (TV: Flesh and Stone) Regardless of the size and what was on the other side, all cracks appeared to be of the same shape and orientation. The Doctor stated that the only way to close such a crack was for it to consume a complicated space-time event, such as himself or a large group of Weeping Angels; all of them together were equivalent to him. River Song volunteered to let herself be consumed, but the Doctor — potentially from a position of ignorance — sneered at the idea and said that she wasn't even as complicated as one Angel. (TV: Flesh and Stone) It's possible the more complicated a space-time event is, the more immunity it has to being absorbed; the Doctor was able to reach into a crack, with his hand covered by a hanky, to pull out a piece of shrapnel from the explosion that created the cracks. Although he didn't get erased, it was painful given his yells. (TV: Cold Blood)
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