The Chelonians were mentioned onscreen in the episode "The Pandorica Opens" as one of the Doctor's enemy species who have banded together to defeat him, suggesting that the events of the novel (like those of the television-acknowledged novel The Monsters Inside) have in fact happened.

Many legends speak of this world, home of an ancient empire destroyed by its own greatest achievement: the Highest Science, the pinnacle of technological discovery.

When the TARDIS alerts the Doctor and Bernice to the presence of an enormous temporal fluctuation on a large, green, unremarkable planet, they are not to know of any connection with the legend.

But the connection is there, and it will lead them into conflict with the monstrous Chelonians, with their contempt for human parasites; into adventure with a group of youngsters whose musical taste has suddenly become dangerously significant; and will force them to face Sheldukher, the most wanted criminal in the galaxy.

They have cybernetic enhancements that include X-ray vision and improved hearing, but this advanced state of technology often causes them to consider human-beings as a form of parasite to be removed.