List of Torchwood monsters and aliens
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This is a list of monsters and aliens from the television series Torchwood.
Contents: Top - 0–9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
[edit] A
[edit] Abaddon
| Torchwood character | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Abaddon | |
| Affiliated with | Bilis Manger |
| Race | Demon |
| Home planet | Earth |
| Home era | Before the dawn of time |
| Appears in | End of Days |
Abaddon, a Biblical demon sealed away "before time" not unlike the Beast from the Doctor Who episodes The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit (it is described as the "son of the great Beast"), appears in End of Days, revealed to have been sealed beneath the Rift. The villainous Bilis Manger had schemed to ensure his freedom, manipulating the Torchwood Three crew. Bilis refers to Abaddon as his "god".
Abaddon killed all those who fell in his shadow; he devoured life. Captain Jack attempted to sacrifice himself by using his immortality to destroy the demon when it tried to absorb too much, leaving Jack dead for days but finally stopping the monster.
It is possible that Abaddon was imprisoned by the Beast's captors, the "Disciples of Light", who may have had a hand in the formation of the Rift as they did with the gravity field and black hole placement around Krop Tor, with the Rift described as being active "since the dawn of time" much as Abaddon existed before its dawn. The Rift is not dependent on Abaddon however, in fact Jack warns that it will be more violent then ever following his release and demise.
In the spin-off novel, Border Princes, Jack and Toshiko inadvertently enter St Mary-In-The-Dust, a church that re-appears every 43 years, just as it disappears from present day and they get stuck "in" the Rift. Here they hear loud footsteps of a large creature that has the ability to drain huge amounts of energy. This is presumably Abaddon. Like all Torchwood spin-off media, its canoncity in relation to the television series remains unclear.
Abaddon's design is somewhat reminiscent of the Seventh Doctor's foe, The Destroyer, most notably in the curved horns, long face, blue, scaly skin and animalistic snout.
[edit] B
[edit] Brudyac
The Brudyac feature in the Torchwood novel, Another Life by Peter Anghelides. Like all Torchwood spin-off media, its canoncity in relation to the television series remains unclear.
The Brudyac are a race of bipedal, humanoid aliens hailing from the eponymous planet, Brudyac. They are over 7 feet tall, have broad shoulders and long, thin arms ending in thick claws. They have exposed skulls featuring a bony ridge from the bridge of their nose, to the back of their head. Their eyes are covered by heavy lids and are red and white in colour. Brudyac appear to breathe in much the same way humans do, through their mouths, with their lungs in their chest.
They also have slight psychic ability, with the ability to control humans from afar with the aid of a small device unit inserted into the spine of the victim. When under the control of a Brudyac, a small green-grey starfish-shaped creature begins to grow in the victim's stomach which, when at a certain size, is ejected through the victim's mouth. If placed in water, the starfish begins to grow. When exposed to oxygen the "starfish" gains the ability to digest any natural material, including rubber and living tissue. Presumably these are food for the Brudyac race. This technology suggests that the Brudyac are familiar with the human race in the time and place they are from. If not, the technology is likely used on another bipedal vertebrate, possibly a slave race, or even lesser members of their own race, with the aim of making food.
Brudyac architecture comprises cylinders with both escape pods and the control panels on their battle cruisers to be of that shape. The advanced technology possessed by the Brudyac is further evidence of a slave race, as the Brudyac have no limbs capable of such construction. Brudyac ships appear to accept several different forms of fuel, including nuclear.
In Another Life a Brudyac battle cruiser is slowly pushing its way through the Cardiff Rift causing adverse weather conditions in the entire bay. If the ship were to force its way the entire way through, it would send a wave down the entire Bristol channel comparable to a tsunami. The lone Brudyac warrior aboard the ship, injured after a crash that killed the rest of his crew is waiting to recover and for a way to power his ship so that he may return home.
[edit] C
[edit] Cannibal villagers
Evan, Helen and nephew Huw Sherman, portrayed by Owen Teale, Maxine Evans, and Rhys op Trefor respectively, are residents from a village with a very strange tradition in the episode, Countrycide. Once every ten years the villagers cannibalise any travellers passing by, through, or to their village. The Torchwood team travelled to the vicinity of the village in order to investigate disappearances in the area, thinking they could be connected to the Rift; when they were drawn into a trap orchestrated by the villagers, they discovered their unsettling secret. When the apparent ringleader of the group, Evan, was eventually captured and questioned, the only reason he gave for following this tradition was that "it made me happy."
[edit] Cyberwoman
- See also: Lisa Hallett
[edit] D
[edit] Dogon
- See also: Dogon Sixth Eye
The Dogon are an exta-terrestrial species referred to in Random Shoes. They are a reptilian race with thirteen eyes, each of which grant them especially enhanced perceptions in various respects. A Dogon ship crashed in the Humber a few years prior to the events of Random Shoes, where Dogons were subsequently dissected and investigated by Dr. Rajesh Singh under director Yvonne Hartman.
[edit] Droon
The Droon feature in the Torchwood novel, Border Princes by Dan Abnett. Like all Torchwood spin-off media, its canoncity in relation to the television series remains unclear.
The Droon are a small extraterrestrial migratory insects, born from pale blue eggs about 2 inches long. Upon arrival, they take up residence in a warm and moist place, most usually the sinus passages of humans where they stay in a contented fugue state. The maximum number of Droon ever recorded nesting in one human is six. At this point they are relatively harmless, only causing the host mild, cold-like symptoms. Usually, after a few months, the Droon leave of their own accord, or die and, during a sneeze, get ejected without the host even knowing.
However, occasionally an egg, roughly one in ten, will pupate and begin to advance to the next stage of their life cycle. When a Droon is about to hatch from its egg, it causes sudden elevations in alpha-wave patterns making it easy to judge when a Droon is about to be a threat. When a Droon hatches, it is no longer pale blue, but a dark blue, almost black, insect with long, thin limbs. In this stage of their life, they are more dangerous than their pupal stage.
When the Droon are considered dangerous, Torchwood may use their Anti-Droon audio paddle to forcibly extract the Droon from the host.
In Border Princes an elderly husband and wife, Mr and Mrs Peeters are infested by the Droon which have to be exterminated before they hatch.
[edit] F
[edit] "Fairies"
| Torchwood race | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| "Fairies" | |
| Type | Supernatural entities |
| Affiliated with | Chosen Ones |
| Homeworld | Earth |
| First appearance | Small Worlds |
Called "fairies" by mankind, Jack Harkness notes that these creatures do not actually have a name. Fairies are not alien life-forms, but have lived alongside humanity since the dawn of time, and although mankind has ascribed positive, friendly aspects to them, Jack insists that they are dangerous. Their exact nature is unclear, although Jack vaguely describes them as part myth, part spirit world and part reality jumbled together, mixed with "old moments and emotions", all moving backwards and forwards through time and seen only out of the corner of one's eye.
Fairies and children are linked, and Jack says that fairies were once children, taken from various time periods stretching millennia into the past. These children are the Chosen Ones, who the fairies protect and avenge if harm comes to them, until the time that they claim the children for their own.
In Small Worlds, fairies are seen in two forms: one a small, glowing humanoid form with butterfly-like wings and the other a much larger, more monstrous form. They are also undetectable by technology, and can appear and disappear at will. They also have control of the elements, able to create sudden gales or rainstorms and direct them with pinpoint accuracy. It is also said that they can make "great storms, wild seas, [and] turn the world to ice."
A common method of killing their victims is to "steal their breath", asphyxiating them by clogging their throats with rose petals. Their ability to move back and forth in time is demonstrated by the appearance of Jasmine, a Chosen One taken in the present, in fairy form in a 1917 photograph.
Jack speculates that fairies may be "part Mara". However, his noting of "Mara" as the origin of the word "nightmare" and their ability to steal the breath from their victims suggests that he is referring to the Mara of Germanic/Scandinavian mythology. It is unclear whether any reference was intended to the Mara of the Doctor Who stories Snakedance and Kinda. Christopher Bailey, writer of Snakedance and Kinda, was a practising Buddhist and named Doctor Who's Mara after the Buddhist demon Mara.[1]
Throughout Torchwood Declassified, they are referred to interchangeably as "maras", "shades" and "fairies".[2] In the Torchwood website's Alien Autopsy featurette, they are described as "demonic fairies".[3].
[edit] "The First Senior"
The First Senior are an organization from an alien planet featured in the Torchwood spin-off novel Border Princes by Dan Abnett. Like all Torchwood spin-off media, its canoncity in relation to the television series remains unclear.
The race that inhabit the planet are only described as "shades," wraith-like shadows covered in thorns in their true form but able to take on any shape they desire. When taking on a different form, they don't just change appearance, but physically change into the object they are copying. However when they are not in their true form, they lose many of the advantages that come from it including near invisibility and extreme speed. They do however retain superior strength and an excellent fighting ability. This is evident by the fact a shade can take on a fully functional Serial G unit, and crush The Amok with its hands.
Despite being gaseous, they have robotic, yet sentient brains capable of uploading and downloading information from a central server on their planet and performing complex calculations.
Similar to Torchwood Three, The First Senior monitor the Rift, at another of its anchor points on their planet. However, their organization is a lot more advanced than Torchwood; on their home planet, they have an entire royal family dedicated to guarding the Rift (the Border to them), lead by the "Border Prince."
When The First Senior discovered the existence of Torchwood, out of curiosity, they sent in an agent known as The Principal. The Principal took the guise of a human, James Mayer, who inserted himself into Torchwood by implanting himself into the team's memories, making them believe he had always been a member. The First Senior then erased The Principal's own memories so that he couldn't inadvertently reveal his true identity.
Also inserted onto Earth was a protector for The Principal, Mr Dine. Mr Dine could make sure The Principal didn't come to any harm and that The Principal was efficiently recalled when his time with Torchwood was over. When The Principal is to be recalled, he regains his memory, through a computer signal, and all memories of him are removed from people he has interacted with, through the removal of a 100 mile wide memory-creation radius.
[edit] M
[edit] "Mary"
| Torchwood race | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Butterfly People | |
| Type | Glowing humanoid |
| Affiliated with | Mary (host) Toshiko Sato (Mary's lover) Sarah Jane Smith (Poet's contact) |
| Homeworld | Arcateen 5 |
| First appearance | Greeks Bearing Gifts (Torchwood) Invasion of the Bane (Sarah Jane Adventures) |
A translucent humanoid who possessed the body of a 19th century prostitute named Mary was encountered in the episode Greeks Bearing Gifts. She was a member of a race which communicated exclusively via telepathic pendants, and claimed to be a political exile, sent to Earth by a teleporter now in Torchwood's possession. At one point, "Mary" calls herself Philoctetes, in reference to his exile on Lemnos. She gave her telepathic necklace to Toshiko, and seduced her into letting her into Torchwood to regain the teleporter.
On arriving on Earth in 1812, the alien killed her guard and possessed Mary. In this form she needed to consume human hearts to maintain the host's youth, taking one a year.[4] "Mary" threatened Tosh in order to regain the teleporter and Jack exchanged it for Tosh. However, Jack had reprogrammed the coordinates, sending "Mary" into the Sun instead of back to her homeworld.
In The Sarah Jane Adventures, Invasion of the Bane, an alien of Mary's race reappears. Sarah Jane Smith helps it find its way home, and reveals that it was a "star poet" from Arcateen 5, who promised to help her with her poetry whenever she needs it. Mr Smith's Alien Files on the Official Website describes her race as Butterfly People.[5]
"Mary" possessed strength large enough to shatter human bones in a manner resembling a gunshot and could move at superhuman speeds, also possessing acute senses able to notice that there was something different about Jack. The poet alien in The Sarah Jane Adventures was able to fly home with some assistance from Sarah Jane Smith. "Mary's" opinions of her human form seemed to be mixed: she disliked watching people talk using conventional speech; which was considered archaic on her home world, but she said she liked the body which she found "so soft, so wicked". She also expressed a dim view of human nature, considering humans to be a race who inherently desired to invade others.
A letter to Doctor Who Magazine noted "Mary"'s strong resemblance to Destrii, a companion from the magazine's Eighth Doctor comic strips. The magazine's editors concurred with the observation.[6]
[edit] Melkene
The Melkene, featured in the Torchwood novel Border Princes by Dan Abnett, were a race of advanced aliens, capable of creating exceptionally lifelike "artificials." Like all Torchwood spin-off media, its canoncity in relation to the television series remains unclear.
About 500 years ago, they fought an interplanetary war with a rival species. When they found themselves losing due to their artificial soldiers lacking the killer instinct, they built the Serial G.
The Serial G are humanoid, bipedal robots with retractable limbs giving it a maximum height of 14 feet. Their limbs are long and thin with sharp claws on the end. Their faces are also very human with similar contours and eye position. The two eyes, when they glow yellow, are the only warning that the Serial G is about to fire its heat ray, a massively powerful blast of energy capable of tearing a human apart.
Serials Gs communicate in hums of various different frequencies. The Serial G also appear capable of small amounts of psychic ability including allowing people understand their language, and sharing their dreams. When the Melkene created them they gave them ungoverned sentience and no inhibitions about ruthless killing and committing atrocities.
Soon after finishing the Serial G, the Melkene released them upon their enemies and soon won the war. However there was an outcry from the Galactic Community as the Serial Gs were held directly responsible for over 16,000 counts of war crime and genocide.
In remorse, the Melkene recalled the Serial G units, but could not control their killer instinct and became extinct from their own creations in under six weeks. The Serial Gs then scattered and went to ground across the entire galaxy.
When the Torchwood team encounter a Serial G in a housing estate, it appears that there is no way to defeat it without some specialist equipment from the Torchwood armoury. However, before the equipment even arrives, Mr Dine, a member of The First Senior, defeats the robot whilst protecting the Principal, James Mayer.
[edit] P
[edit] Parasitic alien tapeworms
A race of "parasitic alien tapeworms" feature in the novel Slow Decay by Andy Lane. Like all Torchwood spin-off media, its canoncity in relation to the television series remains unclear.
[edit] Pterodactyl
| Torchwood race | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Pterodactyl | |
| Type | Pteranodon |
| Affiliated with | Torchwood Three |
| Homeworld | Unknown; presumably prehistoric Earth |
| First appearance | Everything Changes |
The Torchwood Three team keeps a pterodactyl as a pet (specifically, a Pteranodon). It is first seen in Everything Changes, flying inside the Torchwood Hub as well as in the skies over Roald Dahl Plass at the end of the episode. According to the Torchwood website, the creature came through the Cardiff spacetime Rift and began eating sheep, only to be captured by Torchwood and subsequently domesticated. It is also nocturnal, and is content to "come and go at night", with a few sightings which thus far have not caused any concern, except for a few missing sheep in Barry which have been attributed to "black panthers on the loose",[7] a reference to phantom cat sightings especially common in South West England and South Wales.
In Cyberwoman it is revealed that the team use a special type of "barbecue sauce" (the website describes it as a special protein sauce) to help it identify what food is safe for it to eat. It also proved capable of fighting well against a Cyberman. The cast and crew have nicknamed the pterodactyl Myfanwy.[8]
[edit] S
[edit] Sex gas
| Torchwood race | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Sex gas | |
| Type | Gaseous parasite |
| Affiliated with | Carys (host) |
| Homeworld | Unknown |
| First appearance | Day One |
A unnamed gaseous alien parasite that comes to Earth to feed on orgasmic energy in Day One. Composed of vorax and ceranium gases, Earth's atmosphere is poisonous to the alien, so it needs to take a human host to survive for prolonged periods. It vies for control with its host, causing physiological changes that will eventually cause the host's internal organs to explode.
The alien also makes its host secrete a blend of ultra-powerful pheromones that cause tremendous sexual attraction in those around it for the purposes of feeding. Coupling with the host is fatal, causing the host's partner to disintegrate into a pile of dust at climax and allowing the alien to absorb the energy from the orgasm.
The BBC Torchwood website lists it as the "Sex gas". Producer Russell T. Davies[3], in the documentary series Torchwood Declassified, refers to it as a "sex monster".[9]
[edit] W
[edit] Weevil
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Shannon Patrick Sullivan. A Brief History Of Time (Travel): Kinda. Retrieved on 2006-11-13.
- ^ Torchwood cast and crew. Torchwood Declassified, Episode 5, Away with the Faries [Television Series/Webcast]. United Kingdom: BBC.
- ^ a b BBC - Torchwood - Torchwood Declassified - Autopsy Room
- ^ Operation Lowry: Notes from Owen
- ^ BBC - The Sarah Jane Adventures - Mr Smith (UK Access Only)
- ^ Hawden, James; Clayton Hickman (editor) (2007-01-31 cover date). "DWMail". Doctor Who Magazine (378): 9.
- ^ Torchwood External Hub Interface - Pterodactyl
- ^ Torchwood cast and crew. Torchwood Declassified, Episode 4, Girl Trouble [Television Series/Webcast]. United Kingdom: BBC.
- ^ Russell T. Davies. Torchwood Declassified, Episode 2, Bad Day at the Office [Television Series/Webcast]. United Kingdom: BBC.
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