Celestis The Celestis were the Celestial Intervention Agency after they removed themselves from history to escape the War , ( PROSE : " Alien Bodies " ) becoming a petty and selfish group who saw themselves as aloof god s far above the Spiral Politic . ( PROSE : " The Book of the War " ) History . Origin . The Celestis began as the Celestial Intervention Agency . ( PROSE : " Alien Bodies " ) They believed that the Great Houses were gods of history , which allowed them to casually violate the Protocols and commit acts of retroactive genocide at whim . When word of the coming war first reached the Homeworld , the interventionists understood that , unlike in a regular war , where one simply risked losing their life , in a time war the risks involved losing one ' s history . Rather than being forcibly removed from time by the enemy , the Celestis decided to exit history on their own terms , so they carefully excised themselves from the past in such a way that , though none of them had ever physically existed , their idea survived : indeed , they were remembered on the Homeworld as traitors who abandoned the Houses in their hour of greatest need . The Celestis , now conceptual entities rather than physical beings , used flux theory ( PROSE : " The Book of the War " ) and the Matrix to build themselves a world outside spacetime called Mictlan . ( PROSE : " Alien Bodies " ) Though they sometimes referred to themselves collectively as the " Celestial House " , the Lords Celestial were fractious and divided to the point that each Lord was considered their own House , making a total of " ninety - nine Houses " . ( PROSE : " The Book of the War " ) They were split on whether to support the Time Lords or the enemy in the War , ( PROSE : " Alien Bodies " ) and individual Lords often interfered on behalf of one side or another as if it were all a game . Conceptual entities made by the Celestis , ( PROSE : " The Book of the War " ) such as anarchitect s and Shift s , were supplied to the enemy . ( PROSE : " Alien Bodies " , " The Book of the War " ) Interactions with humanity . Though they were much more difficult to destroy in their new existence as idea s , ( PROSE : " Alien Bodies " ) the Celestis required real people not only to act on their behalf but also to think of them in order for them to exist . To achieve this , they often appeared to lesser beings in a " god - form " in order to intimidate them , then offering a Faustian bargain to extend their life in exchange for the Mark of Indenture . ( PROSE : " The Book of the War " ) Bearers of the Mark would then serve in Mictlan for eternity after their death . ( PROSE : " Alien Bodies " ) The Sidhe were aware that the Celestis were collecting those that died during the Battle of the Bulge . ( PROSE : " Autumn Mist " ) The Celestis created an " agency " of Investigator s to act on their behalf in the inner universe , generally as detective s and assassin s . ( PROSE : " The Book of the War " ) The Celestis sent a recorporated agent called Trask to represent them at the auction for the Relic . ( PROSE : " Alien Bodies " ) The Celestis made a deal with the early 21st century scientific genius Jimmy Moriarty which involved giving him knowledge of a ritualistic method of time travel . ( PROSE : " Erasing Sherlock " ) By making a compact with Thomas Jefferson ' s witch lodge , the Celestis created Amerika and became its God s ; together with Faction Paradox , they eventually betrayed the nation and erased significant parts of it from history . ( PROSE : " Print the Legend " ) The Celestis established complete control over the government of a major country on early 21st century Earth . ( PROSE : " Head of State " ) Destruction . Because the City of the Saved included many humans with memories of servitude in Mictlan , the Celestis knew that their realm would one day be destroyed . They sent Lord Foaming Sky to the City through an ambassador exchange program , and there he used worldofme devices to create an army of duplicates of himself . He tried to use these duplicates to conquer a City District , in the hopes that this would give him the leverage to force ex - slaves ( organised into the Ghetto of the Damned ) back to Mictlan , where they would be interrogated . However , the Rump Parliament intervened in the attack and destroyed all the duplicates . Foaming Sky returned to Mictlan a disgrace . ( PROSE : " The Book of the War " ) After the Eighth Doctor put a Celestis Mark of Indenture on the Shift , it was kept in a zoo in Mictlan and lived through the fall of the Celestis under the Memeovore . ( PROSE : " The Book of the War " ) This came to pass when their former agent , One , discovered that Mictlan could lure Swimmer s to the universe ; to stop the universe from being devoured in this way , he arranged for Mictlan to be devoured by the Memeovore , and the Eighth Doctor and a fleet of War TARDIS es cut the realm away from the rest of the universe . As a result , the Celestis were virtually all destroyed . ( PROSE : " The Taking of Planet 5 " )