Regionves: tattoo pictures of flowers and butterflies

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Note that some information on the page is taken from spin-off media. The canonicity of this information is often uncertain.

They are unnamed aliens with whom the government of the United Kingdom made a deal in 1965; the 456 extorted twelve children in return for a cure to an Earth-bound virus which was about to mutate. They are only known by the frequency they are using, 456. When asked for their species name by John Frobisher, they chose to go by this name. They seem to require (or at least prefer) a highly toxic atmosphere, and to be non-humanoid of form, possessing three insect like heads which appear to spew green slime whenever the creatures are aggravated or pressured. In Children of Earth: Day Four, parts of the 456 were briefly seen when a government operative entered its chamber with a portable video camera. It had 3 heads, which possessed mandibles. The rest of the body is trunklike, like a giant caterpillar. A swelling is briefly shown at the end of the creature. After the 456 return to Earth over forty years later, an ambassador of the species demanded that 10% of the world's children be given to the race as a gift, or else the entire human race would be destroyed. To ensure humanity would accept this deal, the 456 announced their arrival several days in advance by possessing and speaking through every pre-pubescent child on earth. A closer view of the visiting 456 specimen showed it had incorporated the bodies of human children into its own, the two being connected by four vine-like tentacles, because of an unnamed chemical pre-pubescents produce that the creatures use like a drug. According to the 456 themselves, such children 'feel no pain', and 'live long beyond their natural span'. The children do not appear to have physically grown, although they are wizened perhaps mutated in some way and appear to be aware of their surroundings and their own condition; they breathe using respirators. The 456 are responsible for the death of Ianto Jones when they release a deadly virus into a building where Ianto was present. They are eventually defeated when Jack Harkness manages to reverse the frequency of a previous transmission made by the 456 and turn it into a weapon against them, driving them away from Earth, although he is forced to sacrifice his grandson Steven to use him as the source of the frequency broadcast in the first place.