Ng

Ng
Main aliases:	The Herald, Gwen Cooper
Species:	Ng's species
Job:	Operative, personal assistant
Affiliated with:	Torchwood Three
Children:	Child
First appearance:	Changes Everything
Appearances:	see list
Main voice actor:	Alexandria Riley

Ng was originally God's Herald and later a member of Torchwood Three.

Tired of watching God destroy world after world, she hid in Gwen Cooper's body after following the Sorvix through the Rift. The two were eventually split and she remained working for Torchwood using her own identity, discovering who she was as a person without God or Gwen.

Biography

Origin

Ng, as she would later be called, belonged to a species which did not value love and, as a result, she grew up believing that survival was the most important thing. She bore a child on the Astrals of Evertide and would later think back on the Mothers of Serenity, her child's first starbathe and twilight union and the Mills of Deliverance.

Ng encountered the Mist and made a deal with it; she would gain the ability to possess the bodies of others and the Mist would get the discarded souls of those she possessed. The first body that she stole was her child's, an act which she felt no guilt over. Her powers caught the attention of God, (AUDIO: Misty Eyes) who chose her to become her herald and to travel from planet to planet preparing species for God's arrival, (AUDIO: Future Pain) providing the Mist with numerous souls. (AUDIO: Misty Eyes)

Eventually, Ng, known as the Herald, tired of all the death that resulted from God's attempt to find a world ready for her love. (AUDIO: Future Pain) She tried to save several planets, but she was unsuccessful as nobody ever listened to her. (AUDIO: Thoughts and Prayers)

Hiding from God

Becoming Gwen

When a number of Sorvix fled Sorva through the Rift, Ng followed them to Cardiff and chose to inhabit the body of Gwen Cooper, whom she found interesting and was ideal because of her exposure to Rift energy, to hide from God. (AUDIO: Future Pain) She took over her body, although she was sometimes able to hear Gwen's voice, and pretended to be her for several months, (AUDIO: Herald of the Dawn) with Rhys Williams noticing a change in their relationship. (AUDIO: Love Rat)

Ng helped defeat an artificial intelligence created by Friend which copied people's voices to persuade them to buy products. Mr Colchester believed that something was behind the intelligence, but the team were soon distracted by other alien threats before they could investigate further. (AUDIO: How I Conquered the World) These threats included the Sorvix, whose presence in Cardiff Jack Harkness and Mr Colchester became aware of. (AUDIO: Changes Everything)

Raising suspicion

When Torchwood learnt that the Sorvix intended on killing Tyler Steele because of his investigation into the Red Doors Programme, Ng saved him from the bombing of the Refugee Crisis Centre and got him to the Hub where she offered him a job, but he ran away. She woke Tyler up when he was knocked unconscious at a candlelight vigil and took him a coffee after he was rejected by Jack for showing a disregard for human life. (AUDIO: Changes Everything) He went on to get a job with the Mayor.

Ng went with Mr Colchester to gather information by observing Madrigal's hen night and called Andy Davidson to have her and the other Sorvix arrested after they killed a stripper and Dean, but the two of them were instead forced to run from 3Sol with Madrigal. After learning more about the Sorvix, Ng returned home and shot Mary Cooper when she told her how she did not feel like she knew her anymore. (AUDIO: Aliens & Sex & Chips & Gravy)

Rhys was concerned by Ng's lack of a reaction to Mary's death, which she explained away by claiming that she blamed herself for it, and they attended Mary's funeral where Ng gave Gwen the opportunity to say goodbye to her mother. Ng intended to go to the Hub after the ceremony and told Rhys to back off when he told her to stay at home, but she relented for the sake of appearances and did not return to work until the next day, when she met Orr and was worried about her ability to get into people's heads. (AUDIO: Orr)

Learning of the Cardiff Bay Intelligent Hotel and Spa from Tyler, Ng went with Mr Colchester to investigate and called in Orr after they failed to make any headway, believing that as an alien they might be more successful. She saved the life of Lady Dakar with CPR and decided that the hotel's computer brain would be taken to the Hub following its defeat, upsetting Orr. Gwen told Ng that she would not give in or give up, but Ng ignored her. (AUDIO: Superiority Complex)

Ng sent Mr Colchester to Bide-a-Wee Care Home to investigate the Committee, but he was unable to learn much from Roy. (AUDIO: The Torchwood Archive)

New Cardiff

Ng was informed by Andy that Jack had been killed, so she and Orr joined him and Jack at the mortuary until Orr repeatedly and painfully shifted between forms and had to be taken to the Hub. There, Ng had sex with Jack and they managed to work out that he and several others had been infected with a parasite for which they got a cure from Ro-Jedda thanks to Tyler. When Ng returned home, she found Rhys crying about their relationship and how different she seemed to be, but she decided against killing him and they instead had sex. (AUDIO: Love Rat)

Unbeknownst to Ng, her willingness to have sex with Jack started to make him suspicious of her. (AUDIO: Herald of the Dawn)

Tyler contacted Ng to ask her to investigate Deliverables, but she was busy dealing with Anwen, who told her that she hated her, and had Orr do the research instead. The two of them concluded that Deliverables was using people as a Rift Manipulator and Ng set fire to the water mains on Newport Road to cause maximum disruption, putting an end to Ro-Jedda's influence over the Rift. Thanks to advice from Orr, Ng was able to placate Anwen and said that she was Anwen's new favourite. (AUDIO: Zero Hour)

Ng accused Ro-Jedda of framing Andy for the murder of a refugee and worked to exonerate him, leading Mr Colchester to find that both Andy and Pete Bunton had attended Helen White's diversity seminars. She found blueprints for White's control device whilst looking for her and eventually tracked her down to the docks, where she and her Sorvix bodyguards had been executed as part of a cover-up. When Jack forced a compromise by which Andy was exonerated and 3Sol took over policing, Ng confronted him with Mr Colchester and Ng and Yvonne Hartman arrived to take over. (AUDIO: The Empty Hand)

Exposure

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Ng and the rest of the team accepted Yvonne Hartman as their new leader after Jack's link to Red Doors was exposed. (AUDIO: Poker Face)

Ng agreed to look into the murder of Michael Hughes, leading the killer, Serena, to hit her with a car due to paranoia. She managed to struggle to the Hub, retconning a man on the way, and later killed Serena in what looked like a suicide to keep her alien nature secret. (AUDIO: Tagged)

Rhys, Mr Colchester and Colin Colchester-Price were increasingly suspicious of her due to her actions in the Escape Room, in which she attempted to sacrifice Mr Colchester. After leaving, she returned to trap Escape and try to get information on God. (AUDIO: Escape Room)

Investigating strange phenomena at a dogging site with Andy, Ng heard Rory Owen say that God was coming. She returned to the Hub and shot an assassin who was trying to kill Tyler and Mr Colchester. When the Rift began opening, she begged Torchwood to close it and Orr was finally able to read her, identifying her as someone other than Gwen. Jack let the Rift split Ng from Gwen and she was rendered unconscious, slowly developing her own form. (AUDIO: Herald of the Dawn)

Becoming Ng

Making amends

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Ng with a gun. (AUDIO: Night Watch)

Ng chose her name as it was the word that her people used to describe a weight that one had to carry. (AUDIO: Misty Eyes) Yvonne employed her help in getting information from Ro-Jedda, locking her up in a cell next to Ro-Jedda's and having her pretend to be a prisoner. Whilst in the cell, she ate rats as she needed the protein to stabilise her new form, and was released after telling Yvonne that Ro-Jedda planned to burn the Earth. (AUDIO: Future Pain)

She was subsequently allowed to join Torchwood. (AUDIO: Hostile Environment) Jack compiled a file on her from what little information she gave him, which he sent on to Gwen. (AUDIO: Misty Eyes)

Brent Hayden imagined Ng as an assassin with an English accent. (AUDIO: The Man Who Destroyed Torchwood)

Ng was upset by Jack avoiding her and confided in Orr about it. The two remained in the Hub when a predator shrouded the city in darkness, leaving them blind. The predator made its way into the Hub and Ng ran away from Orr when they began developing its teeth and urges, after which she realised she was in the presence of God. Ng apologised to her and reaffirmed her love for her, but she said nothing. Unbeknownst to her, God sent the predator away. (AUDIO: See No Evil)

That night, Ng stayed awake despite the Night Sun thanks to Yvonne and her caffeine ring, although Yvonne let her go back to sleep as she did not completely trust her. The next morning, she and Jack began to talk. (AUDIO: Night Watch)

The Reset

Spotting Tyler in the street, Ng agreed to have coffee with him at some point. He later lured her and Mr Colchester with a Weevil report and tagged them with the Oblation app, getting their attention and helping in his bid to find and stop the man behind it. Whilst initially angry, Ng regretted not listening to Tyler sooner. (AUDIO: Hostile Environment)

Ng finally spoke to God after tracking a biotrace to the Evolved technology to an ice cream van. God told her that she was proud of her and that she had switched Torchwood's bodies as a test. Ng refused to pass judgement on her friends and colleagues, pleasing God. (AUDIO: Another Man's Shoes)

Still not completely trusted by Jack, she joined him, Mr Colchester and Norton in stopping the Sorvix power plant from destroying western Europe. She and Mr Colchester placed detonators around the station and later blasted their way in through the hatch despite Yvonne's orders. Ng found Jack and was in the submersible with him and Mr Colchester when the tsunami hit Cardiff. (AUDIO: Eye of the Storm)

After the flood

Despite Torchwood's situation after the Disaster Recovery Committee's inquiry, Ng and Mr Colchester continued their work and investigated the death of Jeff Morris, connecting it with ScrapeJane. Although Ng did not initially believe in the monster, she did after Mr Colchester was attacked and was eventually able to destroy it by smashing the stained-glass window that inspired Meredith Pope and telling a story that she believed in. (AUDIO: ScrapeJane)

On Day Zero, Ng and Mr Colchester pretended to be from Water Wales in order to analyse the poisonous mould. They went to the Ritz Tower camp where they witnessed the conflict between the refugees and the DRC's security guards. Ng was worried after Jack was shot and killed and Andy pointed out that he had been dead for much longer than usual. (AUDIO: Day Zero)

Ng took Mr Colchester to Orr, whom they tried to get out of the city to no avail. They were arrested by Andy, who took them to the Hub and told them that he was working for Jack. Ng and Mr Colchester found the Lens and gave it to Yvonne, who used it to direct Orr's powers to destroy the Committee and Erebus. Ng went on the run with Jack, Mr Colchester, Orr and Tyler after Andy informed them that they were fugitives. (AUDIO: Thoughts and Prayers)

On the run

Torchwood regroups

Torchwood split up and Ng lost contact with Jack. (AUDIO: Aliens Next Door) Feeling guilty for what she had done to Gwen, she got in contact with Kristin Magnúsdóttir of the Icelandic Tourism Information Centre and suggested that she headhunt Gwen to resume fighting aliens. (AUDIO: Misty Eyes)

Ng received files on the residents of a cul-de-sac from a temping agency and moved into Betty Clerihew's house with Orr to observe Hakan Amine, but she tried to keep Orr from protecting Hakan on account of their empathic powers. Eventually, the two of them offered to save Hakan and helped him escape when his neighbours set fire to his house, after which Orr became overcome by the neighbours' hatred and handed Ng over to them as a scapegoat for their anger. She fought back until she saw her ugliness reflected in Orr's form and then they left, aware that the Child was attempting to manipulate the human race. (AUDIO: Aliens Next Door)

Hoping to have the opportunity to apologise to Gwen, Ng visited her and Rhys in Iceland and made a shield generator out of volcanic rock and speedboat engines to trap them in their lighthouse after realising that the Mist had come to claim Gwen. She became trapped herself until her attempt to contact Kristin broke the force field and was prepared to commit suicide to save Gwen, but, at Gwen's insistence, she expressed her regret to the soul of her child and showed the Mist that she was no longer the person who made the deal. Ng left with Rhys's thanks. (AUDIO: Misty Eyes)

Fighting Friend

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Personality

Ng initially lacked any kind of empathy and did not give any consideration to the people whose bodies she stole, even her own child. Her time possessing Gwen however led to her developing a greater sense of humanity, to the point she and Gwen were able to argue the person she had once been was effectively dead. As a result she never intended to steal a body again. (AUDIO: Misty Eyes) Ng was still somewhat manipulative however, such as deliberately withholding information from Orr whilst investigating a cul-de-sac. (AUDIO: Aliens Next Door)

Yvonne described Ng as a hard worker and a good team player, (AUDIO: See No Evil) and believed that she was far more dependable than Jack for handling day-to-day administration. (AUDIO: Another Man's Shoes) Though he was initially reluctant to even talk to her, (AUDIO: See No Evil) Jack eventually came to trust her. (AUDIO: Misty Eyes)

Behind the scenes

• The character mostly pretends to be Gwen Cooper and, hence, was never named in the Aliens Among Us audios. "Ng" (pronounced "eng") was the way she was presented in the cast lists. In interviews, it was mostly treated as an abbreviation of "not Gwen", and at least once as "new Gwen". The name Ng (with this pronunciation) was used in-universe starting from God Among Us 1.
• James Goss and Scott Handcock said that the character was pitched by Russell T Davies, who helped to develop Aliens Among Us for Big Finish Productions. It was the only way to include Gwen Cooper in Aliens Among Us due to the unavailability of Eve Myles for most of the recording sessions for the ongoing series. However, Eve recorded a few lines in a single day for the real Gwen, which were used throughout the series, and the final monologue (written by Davies himself) for the final episode, Herald of the Dawn. Though unavailable for the ongoing series, Eve returned to play Gwen for many standalone stories for Big Finish. (BFX: Aliens Among Us 3)
• According to Goss and Handcock, Alexandria Riley's performance as Gwen "fooled quite a few people", who, upon listening to the first episode of the series, thought that it was Eve Myles playing Gwen. (BFX: Aliens Among Us 3)
• Russell T Davies suggested that "Not Gwen" should kill Andy Davidson, but Goss and Handcock felt it would be too much, as the character is very much loved by the whole team and the fans, and replaced Andy with Gwen's mother. (BFX: Aliens Among Us 3)