Skith

Skith
Biological type:	Crystalline humanoid
Place of origin:	Ownworld
Notable individuals:	Skith Leader, Skith General
First appearance:	The First
Appearances:	COMIC: The Age of Ice, The Stockbridge Showdown

The Skith were a race of humanoids made of a crystal resembling ice.

Biology

The Skith were thin humanoids made of a crystal that resembled and felt like ice, but wouldn't melt when exposed to heat. Most were transparent, but some were different colours, including the red leader and purple general. Skith were capable of shooting ice shards from their hands. (COMIC: The First) They could also transform their limbs into piercing weapons or into a gun-like weapon that fired an energy bolt or beam. (COMIC: The First, The Age of Ice)

Technology

Named Skith technology included the Mindcore, a telepathic device which stored the sum of Skith knowledge. They also had space ships and personal transports, (COMIC: The First) teleportation systems, (COMIC: The Age of Ice) Rift technology which permit them to traverse vast interstellar distances by opening a hole in space, (COMIC: The First) and temporal technology, building a more primitive version of a TARDIS based on the Doctor's knowledge. (COMIC: The Age of Ice)

Skith ships ranged in size from vessels that appeared to be hundreds of feet in width and height, such as an upside-down pyramid-shaped glacier-like ship, to a tall slender crystalline ship that was nearly 2 miles tall and approximately 300 feet wide. (COMIC: The First, The Age of Ice) These ships possessed energy beam weapons that were used against other spacecraft, while their main weapon was a conversion beam, with which a single ship could freeze an entire world. (COMIC: The First)

History

The Skith were a race of explorers and scientists, attempting to catalogue the life of the universe who had explored four galaxies. However, they had the credo that if one were not the first, one were nothing; if they turned out not to be the first alien beings to discover worlds, they deemed any knowledge gained from such a world to be worthless. They would subsequently use their spaceships to freeze the planet, and convert any sentient life that remained into Skithself, leaving them to be commanded to kill each other or to be recovered as specimen samples. This happened to the home planets of the Viskili, the Byndalk and the Mammox. Countless species had been exterminated by the Skith in that manner. (COMIC: The First) The Skith advanced and grew as a species by assimilating other species and their knowledge such as the Skith Leader who was previously from another species. (COMIC: The Age of Ice, The First)

The Skith ship Oppressor One went on an expedition to Antarctica in 1915, interrupting the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of Ernest Shackleton. The scientists' experiments converted a whale into Skithself, but the whale escaped, and its morphic field still being flux also temporarily transformed one of Shackleton's expedition, Robert Clark, into a Skith when he came into contact with it. Their discovery of the Tenth Doctor's TARDIS made them conclude that Earth was already exposed to other aliens. Oppressor One began freezing the Earth, but the Doctor, helped by Shackleton, stopped the Skith by sending the ship into the sun. The Mindcore retreated back to the Skith Ownworld. (COMIC: The First)

Sometime after, the Skith's home planet was obliterated by the Crimson Hand. A portion of the Mindcore on a Skith colony survived, and used the ship Oppressor Two to hunt down the Doctor for perfection of time travel to combat the Hand. They returned to Earth and invaded Australia in 2010. There they successfully captured the Doctor and Majenta Pryce, but were defeated by forces of UNIT during a dispute between ship commanders. (COMIC: The Age of Ice)

A Skith politician attended Josiah W. Dogbolter's 500th birthday. (COMIC: The Stockbridge Showdown)