Celestial Intervention Agency

The Celestial Intervention Agency (often abbreviated "CIA") was a secretive Time Lord organisation.

Their motto was "the story changes, the ending stays the same": their operatives protected the Web of Time by ensuring, by whatever means, that the net result of history remained constant, even though details might change. (AUDIO: The Kingmaker) Because they often violated the Time Lords' non-interference policy, they had to operate in secret so as to give plausible deniability to the High Council. (PROSE: World Game)

Shortly before the War in Heaven, the CIA removed themselves from time and became the Celestis. (PROSE: Alien Bodies, The Book of the War)

Origins and nature
After the Imperator Presidency, the idea of intervention divided Homeworld society. While some interventionist groups like House Paradox openly renounced the Protocols of the Great Houses, others used subterfuge, manipulation, conspiracy, and assassination to gain influence and further their agenda of reshaping the Spiral Politic to suit the Homeworld's needs. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

The CIA became a covert arm of the High Council to safeguard the Time Lords' interests, (PROSE: Shada) functioning as spies; it was said that they "don't even know which side they're on." (AUDIO: Mindbomb)

The Order of the Weal viewed interventionists as the biggest threat to the long-term "common good" of the Great Houses. Thessalia suspected that the intervention groups were legitimising themselves by planting new mythologies into the Homeworld's noosphere through the caldera: (PROSE: The Book of the War) according to some accounts, the CIA evolved from a core group of Rassilon's guards (PROSE: Lungbarrow) during the Eternal War to gather information on enemy movements. Agents were recruited covertly from the Academies and trained in every aspect of espionage and the gathering of data until the network of Gallifreyan spies was huge and difficult to dismantle, though Rassilon considered this "a problem for another day." (PROSE: The Multi-Faceted War)

CIA's involvement with the Doctor
The CIA first employed the Second Doctor to work for them following his trial for breaking the non-interference policy. The Doctor reluctantly agreed to go on a mission with the Time Lady Serena against the Players. (PROSE: World Game) According to one account, after they completed that mission, he was assigned to go with Jamie McCrimmon at his side to Space Station Camera to persuade Dastari to discontinue Kartz and Reimer's time travel experiments; (PROSE: World Game, TV: The Two Doctors) according to another account, this mission was actually assigned to the Doctor by the Monk, in the disguise of Chapter 9 Constable Pavo. (AUDIO: The Black Hole)

A Time Lord by the name of Lord Ferain appeared to the Fourth Doctor to send him on a mission to Skaro to avert the creation of the Daleks. (PROSE: Lungbarrow, TV: Genesis of the Daleks)

Rumour had it that the Doctor had been the best agent of the CIA. (AUDIO: Intervention Earth)

Co-ordinator Vansell of the CIA saw that the Doctor's actions had allowed the Nestene Consciousness to escape destruction and saw to it that a trial for him would take place on Space Station Zenobia. (PROSE: Synthespians™) After the transportation of the Doctor's TARDIS to the Space Station Zenobia (TV: The Mysterious Planet) and the presentation of evidence, (TV: The Mysterious Planet, Mindwarp, Terror of the Vervoids) the trial concluded with the Doctor's prosecutor, the Valeyard, being exposed as the Doctor's own corrupt future self, exonerating the Doctor and causing political unrest on Gallifrey. (TV: The Ultimate Foe)

Other projects and missions
The CIA sent a Time Lord as their agent to Apertsu to serve as a security consultant; however, he was captured by Aubertides who wanted the secret of regeneration. (PROSE: Human Nature)

The CIA began to fear the number of temporally active races, so they began experimenting with various temporal technologies, including TARDISes, in an attempt to plant the minds of newly-created TARDISes within the bodies of aliens on over 50 planets. Time Lady Professor Klyst oversaw this experiment. (AUDIO: Unregenerate!)

The CIA sent a Time Lord to Jamie McCrimmon in order to correct a fluctuation in the timeline caused when Jamie tried to help King James II of England. (AUDIO: The Glorious Revolution)

During their "golden age", secret interventionist groups committed more than one retro-genocide. They came to see themselves as elites among the Great Houses and gods among the lesser species. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

The CIA once had control of a TARDIS data file on the Master. (WC: Who Is The Master?)

Becoming the Celestis
Around twenty years before the start of the War in Heaven, (PROSE: The Book of the War) the CIA foresaw the upcoming war between the Time Lords and the Enemy. Worried that they might be erased from history, they preemptively removed themselves from the timeline in a way that allowed them to continue existing as ideas. (PROSE: Alien Bodies, The Book of the War)

The Celestis continued to hold court in the extra-dimensional realm of Mictlan, which they created using flux theory, (PROSE: The Book of the War) Block Transfer Computation, (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5) and the Matrix. (PROSE: Alien Bodies)

However, as ideas, the Celestis required real people to think of them in order for them to continue to exist. To achieve this, the Lords and Ladies Celestial would manifest themselves to lesser species in "god-form", performing favors like resurrection in exchange for the Mark of Indenture. (PROSE: The Book of the War) Bearers of the Mark would then serve in Mictlan eternally after their death. (PROSE: Alien Bodies) The Celestis also needed physical agents to represent them and act on their behalf in the outside universe, so they created the Investigators. (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5)

During the War in Heaven, the Celestis fought internally about whether to support the Time Lords or the enemy, (PROSE: Alien Bodies) and individual members often interfered on behalf of one side or the other as if the whole war was a game. Notable Celestis involvements in the War included Lord Foaming Sky's attempted invasion of the City of the Saved; Lord Halved Birth's encounter with Vlad Tepes at the Forest of the Impaled; (PROSE: The Book of the War) Lord Dervishage's sabotaging of the The Brakespeare; (PROSE: The Brakespeare Voyage) and Trask's attempted recovery of the Relic at Qixotl's auction. (PROSE: Alien Bodies)

Ultimately, the Celestis were destroyed by a plot orchestrated by Investigator One and the Hermit. A flotilla of War TARDISes sealed off and severed Mictlan from the Spiral Politic just in time for it and its inhabitants to be devoured by the Memeovore. (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5)

On other Gallifreys, the CIA did not become the Celestis and remained in service to the President through the start of the War in Heaven. (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon, The Ancestor Cell) President Romana sent CIA agents Cavisadoratrelundar and Gandarotethetledrax from her Gallifrey to find the first Type 102 TARDIS, knowing that it would be a vital piece of technology in the upcoming War. Cavis and Gandar witnessed the Remote agent Compassion complete a transition to a sentient TARDIS, but the Catuvellauni prevented them from capturing Compassion before she escaped with the Eighth Doctor. (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon)

During the Last Great Time War
At the start of the Last Great Time War, Romana was still Coordinator but the power of the agency in Time Lord Politics was decreasing as the power of the War Council increased. By the time the Daleks attacked Phaidon the agency still had enough power to potentially veto an asylum vote. Romana also negotiated a information sharing procedure between the CIA and the War Council. (AUDIO: Celestial Intervention) Later in the early stages in the war the Agency was trusted to find a way so that Livia could resign on a constitutional technicality. The Agency had to stop Project Revenant from falling into the hands of the Daleks. (AUDIO: Desperate Measures)

During the final segment of the war, Rassilon sent a group of agents of the CIA along with Karlax, who had the mission to kill the War Doctor because of his opposition to the plans of the High Council. Before they could accomplish it, the agents died when their Battle TARDISes were all destroyed by the sudden attack of Dalek stealth ships. (PROSE: Engines of War)

Leadership
Sentris was the 217th Coordinator of the CIA. Her term ended when, upon discovering how many people she had sent to the Oubliette of Eternity, she threw herself into it. (AUDIO: Neverland)

Rigan was Coordinator early in the Doctor's seventh incarnation. (AUDIO: Unregenerate!)

Vansell was Coordinator (AUDIO: The Sirens of Time) until his death aboard the Time Station during the anti-time crisis, following which he was succeeded by Narvin. (AUDIO: Weapon of Choice, Neverland)

A version of Straxus became Coordinator. (AUDIO: The Death of Hope)

Lord Ferain was Director of Allegiance for the CIA. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks)

Niroc was Lord President of the Time Lords after the Doctor was deposed during his long absence. The Celestial Intervention Agency removed Acting President Flavia from office and instated Niroc, a much more controllable President, in her place. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors)

Ortan (PROSE: The Eight Doctors) and Ratisbon (PROSE: Warmonger) were Councillors involved with the CIA.

Farina was Coordinator when the Eleven escaped. (AUDIO: The Eleven)

Other Coordinators included Harom, (AUDIO: Urban Myths) Bulek, (AUDIO: Sisters of the Flame, The Vengeance of Morbius) and Sardon. (PROSE: World Game)

Romana II became the Coordinator after resigning from the Presidency in an attempt to stop the wars that her third incarnation would start. (AUDIO: Enemy Lines)

The Voice of the Agency and Almoner Crest Yeux were other high ranking members of the CIA.

Agents
Agents of the CIA include Commander Torvald, (AUDIO: A Blind Eye) Gandar, Cavis, (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon) Glospin, (PROSE: Lungbarrow) Mortimus, (PROSE: The Quantum Archangel) Serena, (PROSE: World Game) Kurst, Levith, (AUDIO: Neverland) the Doctor, the Master, (AUDIO: Eyes of the Master) and Ace. (AUDIO: Intervention Earth)

CIA assets
The CIA developed psychic paper technology. (PROSE: World Game)

Space Station Zenobia was the property of the CIA. It was the site of the Sixth Doctor's trial; (PROSE: The Eight Doctors) it was demolished during the Sixth Doctor's last days. (AUDIO: The Brink of Death)

The CIA possessed the Oubliette of Eternity, a device which was supposed to remove people from history, but instead made them Neverpeople. (AUDIO: Neverland)

The CIA possessed a Vortex Ops unit which scanned the Time Vortex for any anomalies. (AUDIO: Weapon of Choice)

Behind the scenes

 * Doctor Who writer and script editor Robert Holmes introduced the CIA in the "revisionist" story The Deadly Assassin, in order to address the contradiction between the Time Lord's non-interference policy and the Doctor having gone on missions for them. According to Holmes, then, all of the Doctor's previous missions took place on behalf of the CIA.
 * The acronym CIA is a reference to the United States' Central Intelligence Agency, which in the real world engaged in covert activities outside of US soil while maintaining "plausible deniability". Holmes originally conceived the Time Lords as corrupt and maintained that they worked in the same way.