Quick And Dirty Guide To The Authority And Torchwood

Jenny Sparks was the founder of the Authority. She was born in 1900 and was the living embodiment of the 20th Century. She smokes and has something of an alcohol problem, largely because bad things happen whether she runs a superhero team or not. She can control electricity and even project a giant image of herself over Los Angeles. She also stopped aging when she was 19.

Jenny Quantum is the Spirit Of The Twenty-First Century and probably Jenny Sparks' reincarnation. She has reality bending powers and tendency to see behind the scenes of reality. You could call her creepy, but her adoptive fathers, Apollo and the Midnighter, would probably kill you.

Apollo is appropriately named, he absorbs solar radiation, which enables him to fly, laser things, lift heavy objects. He doesn't have to eat, breathe, or sleep. He has a very nice smile and a friendly personality. He can also kill things by looking at them.

For reasons that are terribly shallow, I decided that Apollo's civilian identity was "Paul". In fact, Apollo and the Midnighter have no idea what their "real" names are; they remember nothing before their creation. This frustates Jenny Sparks endlessly, she dubs them "Ernie and Bert".

The Midnighter is Apollo's husband. Yes, you read that right. They probably have the most stable relationship on the team.

Apollo and the Midnighter were created by the evil genius Henry Bendix. Once they realised Bendix's true nature, they went on the run and spent five years on the streets of America

The Midnighter is stealthy, murderous and not the nicest of people. He has a computer in his head that calculates the outcome of battles before they happen, moves faster than the eye can see, has enhanced strength and agility and possesses a hyped-up immune system. He also has a line in sarcasm, which really ought to be a superpower.

The Doctor is the Shaman of the World. The seat of incredible power and knowledge as old as the human race itself. When a Doctor dies, another is called to take his place.

When Jeroen Thornedike became the Doctor, he was a Dutch junkie with a heroin problem and history of mental illness

That he didn't want the job or the responcibility just convinced the former Doctors in the Garden of Ancestral Memory that he was perfect for the job. They're rather bloody-minded when push comes to shove. You see, the Doctors possess unimaginable power and can change reality in any way they can think of.

Habib Ben Hassan, a Palestinian, is Jeroen's successor as Doctor. He was trying to blow himself up when the Singularity opened around him, he became the new Doctor, and obtained empathy with all living beings and the power to rearrange reality however he chooses

Jeroen is teaching Habib to use his powers and the huge amount of knowledge that being truly enlightened brings.

That said, Habib seems to be bringing a different spin to the way those powers are wielded.

Angie Spica, the Engineer, is a genius. A genius who exchanged her blood for 9 litres of nanites.

She can use them to build things, or to extrude a silvery amoured layer over herself.

She has a complete run of every DC comic since 1967 and wanted to be a superhero when she grew up.

Jack Hawksmoor is the strangest member of the Authority.

As a boy he was repeatedly kidnapped by aliens, who altered his physiology and genetic makeup until he didn't resemble homo sapiens much at all. He is, instead, homo urbanus; a human uniquely adapted for life in cities. He talks to them, and they do whatever he asks of them. He eats pollution and his nervous system is so bound up with them that he goes into shock when removed from them.

Shen Li Min, Swift, is the most overlooked member of the team, which might explain why she isn't in this fic.

Sorry, Shen

A Tibetan Buddhist whose principles have been a little hamstrung by expediency, she can grow wings and talons. When she doesn't want her wings any more, they just fall off and decompose.

The Carrier is the Authority's home. It spends most of its time cruising the upper dimensions or sailing the bleed between parallel universes. It's 55 miles long and just a tad noticeable.

It's also sentinent.

Capt Jack Harkness is the hero of Death Is Just A Dream. He's from the 51st Century and was an employee of the mysterious Time Agency, whom he blames for 2 years' worth of missing memories.

He met the Doctor (not the one from the Authority) and Rose in the London blitz, where he was masquerading as an American volunteer with the RAF, after accepting his responsibility for the events of "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances", he joined the team in the Tardis

Jack will quite happily sleep with anyone, and doesn't discrimenate on terms of sex or species.

Jack died fighting the Daleks in "The Parting Of Ways", only to be mysteriously returned to life. When he ran to find his friends, the Tardis was gone

Rose Tyler worked at a department store in London until the Doctor blew it up fighting killer clothes dummies.

Now she gets to travel the universe with the Doctor, yet still manages to go home to see her mum, Jackie Tyler. Her dad, Pete, died when she was a baby.

When Rose met Jack see was hanging from a barrage balloon over 1940s London and wearing a union jack t-shirt. During a German air-raid. Jack rescued Rose and took her onboard his invisible spaceship, which he'd parked at Big Ben. The first thing to remember when parking an invisible spaceship, according to Jack, is to park it somewhere memorable. Rose might have the teeniest of crushes on Jack.

The Doctor's people, the Time Lords, were wiped out by the Daleks. As far as the Doctor knows, he is the sole survivor of the conflict.

When Time Lords should die, they instead regenerate into a new version of themselves, with a new personality and a different balance of personality traits. The Doctor was on his ninth "life" when he met Rose Tyler, who taught him to be less miserable

The Tardis is the Doctor's time-ship. Tardis stands for Time and Relative Dimension in Space. It looks like a Police Box from 1950s England. It is much bigger on the inside than the outside. It doesn't have any weapons systems and needs a lot of running repairs, with which Jack helps.

It's probably sentinent.