The Celestial Intervention Agency is (literally) Gallifrey’s CIA. The Division, as introduced in series 12 is… also Gallifrey’s CIA, only even more secret? Or only older? Or are they actually the same thing? Are they both active at the same time? Are they enemies? What about the Celestis???
I don’t know much about any of this, so this is more of a place to ask questions to the Council (you guys):
Are they related? Was the CIA a branch of the Division?
Does the Division show up in DWEU stuff from before series 12? Is it now a part of any ongoing stories in the DWEU?
For the Gallifrey fans and experts (Gallifans? sorry), what are your feelings about all this?
imo they are the same thing and it was pretty lame of Chibnall not to just use the CIA. I think in my head they’re either a splinter branch or an earlier version
Ok, makes sense that the Division would show up in the Fugitive Doctor’s stories. I guess if they don’t mention the CIA, then they are not related? Or wait, when does Fugitive’s stories take place, pre-Hartnell? Like, in past past past Gallifrey?
I think that’s the biggest draw of the Fugitive Doctor era is getting answers about Division (there’s no “the”). Fans want to know if Division evolved into the CIA, or if it’s a separate entity. Does it still exist, or had it dissolved by the time of the primary (read TV) incarnations of the Doctor? Of course we meet Gat and Tecteun in the Thirteenth Doctor’s present, but is their present running concurrent with the Doctor’s or are from her past and just using time travel to meet her? These are questions we hope get answered, or at least expanded on.
Comparing to UK Agencies, in my head: Gallifrey’s CIA = MI5/MI6, Division = Torchwood (Outside the government, beyond the police, not beholden to the Prime Minister/Preisdent)
I’d say they are different but similar things, but I can see why one might consider them the same and think that’s an interesting point of view. Personally I’d consider them different because they feel different. The Division appears to operate outside any type of government authority or even knowledge on gallifrey, they have clear goals for how to shape and change the universe, they also employ or force to work for them people from all over the universe. Meanwhile the CIA is pretty involved and a known player in gallifreyan politics, has, as far as I’ve encountered so far, only gallifreyan operatives, and as goals generally has both individual power on gallifrey, power for gallifrey and to keep the web of time stable. The CIA, like Gallifrey as a whole, feels to me much more static than Division. (And it’s got way worse spies too, I mean, just look at Narvin )
Yeah, I agree. I think the CIA is to do with Time Lord and Gallifreyan affairs and anything that threatens their supremacy, and Division is to do with Time Lord control over the universe, time, and space.
I really love that the Time Lord policy of non-interference in the affairs of other peoples and planets turned out to be a lie, a policy for the sake of appearances. Like do we really expect a society and a people like the Time Lords with their power and technology to just sit back and observe, that was always unbelievable, and so Division is such a great reveal, it makes so much sense that they’d be secretly interfering and have a whole hidden empire controlling everything.
This is the thing, like us more dedicated fans know about the CIA. A more casual fan probably does not. Was Chibnall’s idea to introduce his own “modernization”/vision for the CIA in the show, or are they really supposed to be different things?
I’m still not clear on how much Gallifrey is connected to Division. Like, the Doctor was president for 5 mins and didn’t know about it, ok, that makes sense. But does Romana know about it? Does/Did Rassilon? If not, then I find it a bit strange, given that Gallifrey does intervene quite a bit on the rest of the universe in the EU already, via the CIA and other agents. So now we have another power on top of it even?
What I mean to say is: my understanding was that Gallifrey was already a hidden empire controlling a lot of the happenings in the universe, so the Division is introduced and I was thinking ‘oh, don’t we already have that?’
Okok, so you’re saying the CIA maybe came of Division, but Division at some point broke away from Gallifrey’s influence and decided they knew what was best for the Time Lords and the universe and are acting without their endorsement (explicit endorsement, at least)? Like, getting their hands dirty when the High Council can’t be seen to do that? IDK, it seems a bit redundant, because the CIA does this sort of shadier stuff already, no?
Gallifreyans observe but don’t interfere, and they’re not exactly hidden, other races know about them (The Sontarans nearly successfully invaded them in classic)
Oh, yes, for sure, but I meant ‘hidden empire’ in that they have more power than they appear to have, and have interfered more than they say they did (like the whole thing with Rassilon engineering humanoid races in ‘Zagreus’)
I see them as basically the same organisation in two different eras. It’s probably in the best interest of the show to not use CIA as a name when there’s an obvious clash with the American agency.
Division seems to be a lot more secretive than the CIA. In the Gallifrey audios most people seem to be aware the CIA exists even if what they do are top secret while Division is so secret it’s basically a myth. I also think Rassilon may have made the CIA because it’s his own agency while Division he’d be questioning if they’re more loyal to Tecteun than him.
I can imagine the CIA coming out of Division, yes, but to me I think Division is much more focused on Tecteun and her ideas and goals. And there connection to gallifrey is more coincidental almost? Because it happens to be where Tecteun is from and does her regeneration experiments. I don’t think they have any connection to gallifreyan politics at all actually, at least not around the time of the show [1] except for presumably spies they have there because they appear to have those pretty much everywhere.
Yeah this is what the CIA does for sure and I think what the Division does is similar but different in a way I can’t really explain.
Also I really don’t have any idea what I’m talking about here and maybe I should at least finish lung barrow before I say anything else because it’s got some interesting CIA bits, so for now I am just saying words recreationally
this is complicated of course because they are in the show but I mean in linear time on gallifrey they have long lost their connection to it by the time the Doctor or Romana are presidents ↩︎
