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A dangerous enemy, Bilis Manger has the power to effortlessly time travel, apparently without technical aid. Manipulating Torchwood 3 in various ways, he eventually tricked them into opening the Cardiff rift.
Biography
Nothing is really known of Manger, not even his origin as a Human or a being posing as Human.
A week or so after events involving Mary and Toshiko Sato (TW: Greeks Bearing Gifts), Manger talked with Owen Harper in a bar, pumped him for information on Torchwood 3 and revealed to Owen that he had given him a combination of retcon and the truth drug sodium pentathol. (torchwood.org.uk)
Then he appeared as a greeter in the Ritz dance hall in January 1941, immediately taking a sinister interest in Jack Harkness and Toshiko. Manger's possession of a file with the hand-lettered label "Torchwood" indicates he had some connection with 1940s-era Torchwood Institute.
Simultaneously, he seemed to exist in the early 21st century, managing the now-abandoned dance hall. In possession of a missing component of the Rift manipulator found at the Hub, it seems possible that he deliberately allowed Owen Harper to find it in a grandfather clock and and to take it. At the same time, he deliberately scratched out numbers in Toshiko's rift equations so that the manipulator would not function properly and so cause the rift to widen after Owen used the manipulator to bring Jack and Toshiko back to the 21st century. (TW: Captain Jack Harkness)
Shortly after, Manger's appearances took an even more ominous tone. Jack and Gwen Cooper discovered that Manger owned a store named A Stitch in Time and met him there. He demonstrated to Gwen his power to time travel and showed her a vision of Rhys lying dead. Later, he proceeded to stab Rhys to death himself.
The visions of loved ones who appeared to the members of the team (except for Jack), inducing them to open the rift almost certainly have something to do with Manger.
- Manger may have the power, himself to appear as other people or at least to induce illusions.
Bilis disappeared claiming that his "work was done" after Abaddon rose over Cardiff. (TW: End of Days) Bilis returns during the events of Series two in the novel The Twilight Streets.In this novel he is apparently a member of Torchwood an alternate timeline where Owen wasn't killed in (Reset). He apparently is able to access any doors that Torchwood have put an entry code on due to a key he carries around that he got from the alternate Torchwood team. In our timeline, he is apparently sponsoring the opening of abandoned streets known as the Twilight Streets when he returns to this timeline. He is actually revealed in this novel not to be entirely evil as he only wanted to unleash (Abaddon) so that particles called the Light could cleanse Torchwood of their inner darkness. But in the other timeline he did not succeed to release Abaddon and the Torchwood team were infected by particles called the Dark, apart from Jack.Bilis was able to enter this timeline due to the portal in the Twilight streets themselves. It is possible that when he time travelled away in End of Days he went back to the other timeline to conduct experiments on the Torchwood team infected by the Dark. When he unleashes an alternate version of Abaddon upon Pwccm to defeat him in the alternate timeline he succeeds and makes the alternate team live their lives without being controlled by the Dark. At the end of the novel, he gets on a train with an urn that apparently contains Abaddon's ashes. (TWN: "The Twilight Streets")
- The letters of Bilis' first name, re-arranged spells, "Iblis", an Islamic name for Satan.
Personality
Manger had a quiet, guarded, sardonic demeanour. He does not display overt emotions. He has a fascination with clocks. Manger seemed to worship Abaddon as a god and worked to free him.
Abilities
Manger had the power of time travel by teleportation (TW: Captain Jack Harkness), the ability to teleport across space, telepathy and precognition. He possibly also possessed the ability to appear as other people or create illusions or apparitions. (TW: End of Days)