Angel

You may wish to consult Angel for other, similarly-named pages.

Angels, known in the mythology of many species, were spiritual beings that served gods and other higher powers as their messengers.

Appearance

Popular Earth depictions of angels often presented them as beautiful humans with halos and/or wings, not unlike Solonians in their "evolved form", (TV: The Mutants) Light (TV: Ghost Light) and the Weeping Angels. (TV: Blink) Members of the Heavenly Host, robots designed by Max Capricorn, resembled angels by deliberate design. (TV: Voyage of the Damned) James Court, who worked in Earth theatre in the late 20th century, had often observed a special effect wherein a "hastily-assembled combination of feathers, muslin and stage lighting" created the appearance of an angel from the audience's point of view. (PROSE: Vampire Science)

Life's angels indeed had "silvered wings". Made out of living crystalline substances, they had a number of blinking eyes each. Their singing was "sweet and honeyed". (PROSE: Hark! The Herald Angels Sing)

History

Angels were one of the forms taken by the various agents of the eternal being known as Life. Living beings carved out of crystals, they beat their silvered wings and blinked their many eyes, and were tasked with carrying news of cosmic importance throughout Creation to mortals and immortals alike. (PROSE: Hark! The Herald Angels Sing) Light, an Eternal himself, (PROSE: Divided Loyalties) who travelled the universe compiling the Catalogue of Life, took on the form of an angel when awakened on Earth in the 19th century. (TV: Ghost Light)

Peri Brown once met an angel named Yy, who was "more than just woman or man", androgynous and "unbearably beautiful". They had fallen from Heaven, and after selling their wings for a cheeseburger, Yy was imprisoned on Sheol. Peri convinced Yy to return, and helped them close the Gates of Heaven. (PROSE: The Ruins of Heaven)

Iris Wildthyme, for her part, was well-acquainted enough with an archangel called Gabriel to play gin rummy with him for the Ark of the Covenant; (PROSE: The Unhappy Medium) it is worth noting that in his eighth incarnation, Iris's friend the Doctor once claimed that he and "the archangel Gabriel" were one of the same. (PROSE: Vampire Science)

When the War in Heaven drew to a close, thousands of angels descended from the heavens above the Shadow Spire, one of Faction Paradox's last outposts. With their singing, they announced the end of the War and the coming of the Peace. (PROSE: Hark! The Herald Angels Sing) Three were captured by the Crime Lady Cortalian and sold into slavery at the First Auction in Heaven. They were bought by a corrupt, lecherous Bishop, who intended to show them off to "his Holiness" to finally show up "the f*cking Protestants". The Angels rolled their many eyes at these statements. (PROSE: Going Once, Going Twice)

References

When Christian missionaries failed to exorcise Saul from Cheldon Bonniface, they built a church on the site, then declared him an angel. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Revelation)

In 325, Arius and Clement came to suspect that Erimem was an angel when they witnessed the TARDIS dematerialise. (AUDIO: The Council of Nicaea)

By 1055, Sebastian Grayle believed that the Nimon were angels. (AUDIO: Seasons of Fear)

In 1240, the people of Kiev believed that an alien soldier buried in the catacombs was a dark angel. (PROSE: Bunker Soldiers)

In 1553, when Mistress Ellen and Queen Jane Grey witnessed Rani Chandra return to her own time via a time window, Ellen believed it to be witchcraft, but Jane believed Rani to have been an angel. (TV: Lost in Time)

In 1609, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine mediated the Armageddon Convention while believing that he was intervening in a war between angels. (PROSE: The Empire of Glass)

Isaac Newton believed that the babel was an angel. Nate Silver believed that the Pilots' Coterie were angels. (PROSE: Newtons Sleep)

In 1669, Father Chadwick Vita thought that the Healer was an angel. (COMIC: Black Death White Life)

In 1702, Major Billy Lovemore claimed he was an angel of retribution before shooting Ned Cotton. (AUDIO: Phantasmagoria)

In 1759, Madame de Pompadour called the Tenth Doctor "my lonely angel". (TV: The Girl in the Fireplace)

In 1869, Gwyneth believed that the Gelth were angels. (TV: The Unquiet Dead)

In 1914, soldiers fighting in World War I in Belgium came to believe that a Warfreek surveillance device was the Angel of Death come to take the dead to Heaven. Later, Rose Tyler posed as an angel to put a stop to a battle. (COMIC: Warfreekz!)

In 1930, a New York City showgirl named Tallulah performed "My Angel Put the Devil in Me" dressed as an angel, while the supporting dancers were dressed like devils. (TV: Daleks in Manhattan)

In 1953, Father Hemmings believed that the aliens he had found washed up on a beach were angels. (PROSE: The Canvey Angels)

Chad Boyle believed that the Timewyrm was an angel. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Revelation)

In 1997, Gabriel and Jude of the Rapture claimed to be angels. (AUDIO: The Rapture)

In 2007, a viewer of Ghostwatch believed that the Cybermen, who appeared all over the world, were angels. (WC: Ghostwatch)

In 2009, Peter Dalton believed that the Trickster was an angel. (TV: The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith)

In 2009, Oliver Harrington believed that the glow that the people the neutron eater consumed emitted meant they were turning into angels. (AUDIO: Lost Souls)

When the Enochai attacked Greenwich in 2009 they had the appearance of clockwork angels. (COMIC: Don't Step on the Grass)

In his Miracle Day speech in 2011, Oswald Danes claimed that humanity had evolved into angels. (TV: The Categories of Life)

When !C-Mel became Clarence, he took on the appearance of an angel. (PROSE: Ghost Devices)

The Morphieans had the ability to animate stone statues of angels. (PROSE: Ten Little Aliens)

Behind the scenes

• Hark! The Herald Angels Sing's account of angels in the War in Heaven implicitly equates them with the Chronovores, or at least paints a strong connection between the two, making angels out to be crystalline beings with "silvered wings" who are Life's agents, this after Time's Champion, in its unlicensed charity form, drew the same link between Life and the Chronovores.