Menti Celesti
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The Menti Celesti were a group of deities which the ancient Gallifreyans worshipped during the Pythia's rule. They were made up of the leading Eternals, including Pain, Time, Death, (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible [+]Loading...["Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible (novel)"]) Life, (PROSE: Seeing I [+]Loading...["Seeing I (novel)"]) and Fate. (PROSE: Christmas on a Rational Planet [+]Loading...["Christmas on a Rational Planet (novel)"])
Death once explained to Timothy Dean that she and her many sisters were the dreams of Time Lords, leaking across the universe and occasionally given form by beings such as the Timewyrm. She also mentioned that they appeared to some Time Lords in nightmares or near-death experiences and made deals, sometimes even making the Time Lord their Champion. (PROSE: Human Nature [+]Loading...["Human Nature (novel)"])
The Hermit once told the First Doctor to fast for three days and three nights to make supplications to the Menti Celesti. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Revelation [+]Loading...["Timewyrm: Revelation (novel)"]) The worship of the Menti Celesti was controversial on Gallifrey, as some Time Lords objected to the mass celebration of Eternals, who were, after all, another species. (PROSE: Happy Endings [+]Loading...["Happy Endings (novel)"])
Prior to the War in Heaven, all the goddesses save Death fled the Spiral Politic in their six-folded home, (PROSE: Hark! The Herald Angels Sing [+]Loading...["Hark! The Herald Angels Sing (short story)"]) and the Celestial Intervention Agency transformed themselves into beings of thought called "Celestis". (PROSE: Alien Bodies [+]Loading...["Alien Bodies (novel)"], et al.)
Behind the scenes[[edit] | [edit source]]
- The name "Menti Celesti" is taken from La Calisto, a 1651 opera with a libretto by Giovanni Faustini. In its original context it was simply an Italian phrase, meaning "heavenly minds", and was the name of a divine choir that was part of the narrative. In Italian, the second word is not pronounced like the English word "celestial" but as /t͡ʃeˈlɛ.sti/ (chuh-LESS-tee).
- The Menti Celesti have obvious similarities to the Endless as depicted in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman comics, which began a few years prior to the Virgin New Adventures. This connection was acknowledged in Happy Endings, where Bernice Summerfield and Jason Kane's wedding is attended by Death in an incarnation who looks and acts like Gaiman's Death, down to repeating one of her most famous quotes. However, Gaiman's Endless were of mixed genders (with Destruction, Destiny and Dream being male) unlike the seemingly all-female Menti Celesti, and they were explicitly limited to a count of seven, leaving no room for Time, Fate, Life and Pain.
- While earlier sources had referenced "Life" and "Fate" as entities in a mythological context, Mags L. Halliday's A Handful of Silver from the 1999 charity anthology Perfect Timing 2 was first to assert that Fate was a Gallifreyan goddess, and Chris McKeon's unlicensed 2008 completion of Craig Hinton's Time's Champion introduced the Eternals Life and Hope. Life and Fate were later confirmed as Eternals in Jayce Black's Hark! The Herald Angels Sing [+]Loading...["Hark! The Herald Angels Sing (short story)"].
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