Following the Third Doctor's alternate regeneration on the planet Dust (PROSE: Interference - Book Two), the TARDIS, sensing that something was wrong, became aware that the Doctor had been infected with the Faction Paradox biodata virus, intended to corrupt him into a member of the Faction. To protect the Doctor, the TARDIS took the virus into itself, holding it in check even as the power requirements for doing so increased to the point where, following its near-destruction after it was caught in a dimensional rift leading to the dream realm of Avalon (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon), it was forced to draw power from a universe-in-a-bottle created by I.M. Foreman that the Time Lords had hidden in the Time Vortex.