Aphrodite

Aphrodite
Species:	God
Place of origin:	Olympus
Sibling:	Ares
Children:	Eros
First appearance:	The Life Bringer!
Appearances:	PROSE: The Rise & Fall of Señor 105

Aphrodite, later known as Venus, was a goddess in Greek mythology. (COMIC: The Life Bringer!) She "inspired love in the hearts of mankind". (AUDIO: The Queen of Time) A real being, Aphrodite dwelt with the other gods in Olympus. By one account, "Olympus" which was actually a planet (COMIC: The Life Bringer!) or another dimension. (PROSE: Deadly Reunion) Yet another account showed that a version of Aphrodite existed as a resident of Olympus in the Land of Fiction. (AUDIO: The Wrath of Medusa)

Biography

Aphrodite rose from the sea amidst a cluster of oysters. These oysters were later acquired by Hecuba. She tried to serve them to the Second Doctor when she invited him for dinner, seemingly not realising that they had, over the intervening millennia, decayed into putrescent slime. (AUDIO: The Queen of Time)

When several of the gods decided to align themselves with the planets of the solar system, Aphrodite chose Venus as her domain. Pan chose El Mundo, where his descendants, the Satyrmen, eventually developed a key that would let them open gates to the realm of the gods. Pan shared this technology with the other gods, giving them keys of their own, including Aphrodite. (PROSE: The Rise & Fall of Señor 105)

Aphrodite gives Prometheus and the Fourth Doctor a lift in her flying shell-craft (COMIC: The Life Bringer!)

In one story, Aphrodite and her son Eros were confronted by the giant beast Typhon. They leapt into the ocean to evade him, and were dragged to safety by two fish; the fish were rewarded with a place in the heavens and became Pisces. (PROSE: Introduction and links)

Displeased to find that Prometheus had returned to Olympus, she took him and the Fourth Doctor to see Zeus, whom she informed that Prometheus stubbornly intended to repopulate the universe with men again. Aphrodite later went to see Prometheus in his cell, hoping to persuade him to be more reasonable, but found that he had escaped and alerted Zeus. (COMIC: The Life Bringer!)

Occasionally, Aphrodite's brother Ares, the god of war, became inflamed with lust for her; one of their unions resulted in their twin sons, Phobos and Deimos. The subsequent occasion, Ares's star Mars began to pursue Aphrodite's star Venus through Greek Space, smashing holes in Olympos and raining fire across the land. Their relative Iris devised a solution in which the two stars would spin about missing each other, only rarely aligning in pleasurable occultations. (PROSE: Wandering Stars)

Three billion years after the extinction of the Venusians, Theo Possible visited the site of the vanished metropolis Ujannonot, where he encountered Aphrodite sitting on a rock. He returned her key, which had been stolen, and she asked Theo to avoid Señor 105 for the time being. (PROSE: The Rise & Fall of Señor 105)

Appearance

When Theo Possible met her on Venus, Aphrodite was a human-looking woman, naked apart from a delicate chain necklace, on which she hung her interdimensional key. She had flame-coloured hair that swirled in the blistering, toxic gases, which did not harm her. (PROSE: The Rise & Fall of Señor 105)

References

Odysseus hoped that the First Doctor, whom the Greeks had mistaken for Zeus, would tell a tale or two of Aphrodite at dinner. (TV: The Myth Makers)

In 79, Donna Noble, after dressing up in Roman clothing, compared herself to Venus in an attempt to make Evelina smile. (TV: The Fires of Pompeii)

Barbara Wright knew that numerous Greek gods had been "rechristened" by the Romans, and that it was they who renamed Aphrodite as Venus. (PROSE: Byzantium!)

In 2009, Wilfred Mott claimed that the planet Venus was the only planet in the solar system to be named after a woman. (TV: Partners in Crime)

In a parallel universe, one where the effects of the reality bomb caused its stars to wink out, the ancient Greeks believed that the observable disappearances were Hermes stealing them as gifts for Aphrodite. (AUDIO: The Endless Night)