Sontaran

Sontaran
Main aliases:	Potato Head
Biological type:	Humanoid
Affiliated with:	Sontaran Empire
Place of origin:	Sontar, Mutter's Spiral
Notable individuals:	Group Marshal Stike General Sontar General Staal Commander Linx Commander Skorr Commander Stor Field Major Styre Major Varl Commander Kaagh
Appearances:	List of Appearances

The Sontarans (pronounced "Sohn-TAR-rans") were a race of belligerent and militaristic clones who waged eternal war throughout Mutter's Spiral against the Rutan Host.

Biology

The Sontarans were humanoids with large, bulbous heads and short stocky bodies. They had grey-brown skin and deep set features. Sontarans generally had three digits on each hand (two fingers and a thumb). They had great strength and resilience in lower gravity environments like Earth or Gallifrey. (DW: The Two Doctors) Despite this strength, Sontaran muscles were designed for load bearing rather than leverage. (DW: The Time Warrior) The cloned Sontaran species consisted only of males. (DW: The Time Warrior) Sontaran Blood is green. (DW: The Two Doctors) They are also weak to Coronic acid, which causes them to disintegrate and burn. (DW: The Two Doctors)

The Sontarans reproduced by cloning, meaning each Sontaran was nearly identical to each other. All appeared roughly the same age, with the exception of General Sontar, who appeared older. (PDA: The Infinity Doctors) Occasionally, genetic deflects would crop up and the afflicted Sontarans would be sent to work in menial labour. (DWM: The Betrothal of Sontar)

Society

Sontaran society revolved completely around warfare, Sontarans being a war-obsessed race. Sontarans did not fear death, and they would rather be court martialled than show pain to others. They considered it honourable to face battle open skinned (without a helmet). The Doctor warned that combat with them must be avoided at all costs. (DW: The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky) Due to their probic vent, Sontarans must always face their enemy as, if they turn, they expose their "weak spot". They had no problem with betraying allies. (DW: The Time Warrior, The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky)

Ranks

Note that the ranks are listed in presumed order of seniority in relation to real-life ranks of Earth armed forces. The precise order is pure speculation, however.

• Space Marshal Sontar
• Battle Marshal
• Fleet Marshal
• Group Marshal
• Marshal
• General
• Squadron Commander
• Commander
• Battle Major
• Field Major
• Major
• Lieutenant
• Warrior

The ranks of individual Sontarans were generally not prominently displayed on the uniform. The Marshal above Styre sported two large spiky disks on the front of his collar. (DW: The Sontaran Experiment) Commander Stor wore a larger collar than his troops and had a white, three-pointed crown imprinted on his helmet (DW: The Invasion of Time), although the crown may well have been the emblem of the Sontaran Empire (DW: The Time Warrior). Group Marshal Stike had white braiding on his shoulders, akin to epaulets. (DW: The Two Doctors) In the early 21st century, badges of rank were more clearly visible and consisted of various symbols set into the right-hand side of the front of the collar. General Staal wore five diamonds in a crown-shaped pattern. Commander Skorr sported three diamonds in a similar design. (DW: The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky)

Forces

The Sontaran military appears to be divided into several different units, regiments and fleets:

• Fifth Army Space Fleet of the Sontaran Army Space Corps (DW: The Time Warrior)
• Sontaran G3 Military Assessment Survey (DW: The Sontaran Experiment)
• Sontaran Special Space Service (DW: The Invasion of Time)
• Ninth Sontaran Attack Group (DW: The Two Doctors)
• Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet (DW: The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky)
• Special Assault Squad - Attached to other units, such as the Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet (SJA: The Last Sontaran)
• Koda - Military security branch of the Sontaran Armed Forces. (MA: Lords of the Storm)

Technology

See also Sontaran Technology.

The Sontarans were reasonably advanced, though all their technology was designed for use in the war with the Rutan Host. They often used spherical spaceships and could make advanced robots for various purposes.

Weaponry

The Sontarans could use and make a wide variety of hand-held weapons, though they usually used a thin, metallic weapon, the approximate shape and size of a corkscrew, designed to fit the Sontaran hand. The weapons were used for energy projection and hypnotism. (DW: The Time Warrior) The Sontarans also utilised rifle laser weapons during the assault of 2009, which fired bright beams of red light that could kill a Human without any exterior damage. (DW: The Sontaran Strategem/The Poison Sky)

File:St--4b23.jpg

Styre in his battle armour (DW: The Sontaran Experiment)

The Sontarans also made use of fragmentation grenades, which could destroy everything in a certain area. (DWN: Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons, NA: Legacy')

Transportation

File:Sontaran Ship.JPG

A Sontaran scout ship. (DW: The Sontaran Stratagem)

The Sontarans used spherical vessels, which were covered in square plates. They were generally only large enough for one Sontaran. (DW: The Time Warrior) The Sontaran motherships were similar in shape, but had 4 claw like appendages coming out of the top and bottom. The scout ships were attached to the mothership and could be released when needed. (DW: The Sontaran Strategem/The Poison Sky)

By the 12th century, Sontarans already used crude time-travel technology, utilising osmic projection, though nothing comparable to Time Lords. (DW: The Time Warrior) In the 20th century, they made other attempts to obtain more effective time-travel technology, specifically those of the Time Lords. (DW: The Two Doctors)

Sontarans adapted teleportation technology using generators situated at the area of materialisation. (DW: The Sontaran Strategem/The Poison Sky)

Armour

Sontarans wore distinctive battle armour, which resembled a thick and bulky grey space suit. Their helmets were dome-shaped and almost featureless except for two eye holes and a small, flat crest running from the forehead to the back of the neck. They generally carried around their rod-like weapon and a translating device. (DW: The Time Warrior) During a period in the early 21st century Sontarans had blue, less flexible, armour in a similar design. (DW: The Sontaran Strategem/The Poison Sky)

File:St--3u07linxscontroldevice.jpg

A Sontaran control device. (DW: The Time Warrior)

Other Technology

The Sontarans were capable of creating around a million clones every four minutes, which allowed them to sustain massive casualties. (DW: The Time Warrior) These clones were grown in vats and were nourished by sezerfine gas. (DW: The Poison Sky)

Styre used a miniature camera and a force field while studying the Humans. (DW: The Sontaran Experiment)

During the mission to make Earth a clone planet, the Sontarans made a Cordolaine field around themselves that causes metallic copper to expand; when the copper is in the jacket of a bullet, it becomes jammed in the gun's barrel, rendering it useless. (DW: The Sontaran Strategem/The Poison Sky)

History

Early History

Originally, Sontarans differed considerably in appearance and reproduced sexually, rather than via cloning. The original Sontarans appeared ganglier and more more like Humans. Prior to the war with the Rutans, the clones forced the purebloods off-world. (DWM: Pureblood)

Rutan-Sontaran War

The cloned Sontarans were engaged in a war with the Rutan Host. During the Millennium War, though, Sontarans and Rutans briefly joined forces. (PDA: The Quantum Archangel)

Accounts differ as to the date at which the Rutan-Sontaran war started.

File:Timewarrior ep1.JPG

Jingo Linx on Earth. (DW: The Time Warrior)

In the 12th century, Linx, a scout, landed in England and claimed it for the Sontaran Empire. He proceeded to make an alliance with Irongron, a local warlord, and to transport scientists from the late 20th century into the past using his osmic projection to use hypnosis on them in order to make them work on his ship. (DW: The Time Warrior)

In 1609, along with the Rutans, the Sontarans participated in the summit of military powers throughout Mutter's Spiral in the Armageddon Convention, which convened in Laputa, a floating island in the sky near Venice. (MA: The Empire of Glass)

During the later part of the 20th century, Edgar Nelson-Stanley met with the Sontarans. He believed they were "the silliest race in the galaxy". (SJA: Eye of the Gorgon)

In the 1980s, the Sontaran Warburg investigated the possibility of using time ships in order to win the war. At the same point in time they were involved in a battle with the Rutans in the Madillon Cluster. Neither attempt was successful. (DW: The Two Doctors)

Commander Staal, during the Earth invasion of 2009. (DW: The Sontaran Stratagem)

In 2009, the Sontarans were losing the war against the Rutans. To counter this, the Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet (led by General Staal) made plans to convert Earth into a cloning world, and carried them out with the help of Luke Rattigan. The Sontarans used a form of hypnosis on the workers of the ATMOS factory, forcing them to start shipping out devices that contained gases poisonous to humans, contained inside plates attached to the Sat-navs they sold. When the Doctor attempted to meddle, the Sontarans activated all the plates in every car containing one. The gas was released into the air, choking people around it. The fleet was eventually destroyed by Rattigan. (DW: The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky)

Following this attempt, Commander Kaagh was left as the last survivor of the Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet after he crashed to Earth. He used Professor Skinner to bring satellites crashing into Earth's nuclear power plants. He wanted to take Sarah Jane Smith to Sontar for the Doctor's crime and for her knowledge of the Sontarans. The plan was stopped when Chrissie Jackson disabled Kaagh with her high heeled shoe, but he came round and was forced back to Sontar in his pod. (SJA: The Last Sontaran)

During either the 25th or 26th century, the Rutans destroyed the Sontaran homeworld, Sontar, with photonic bombs, though some escaped with the Sontaran racepool. At the same time, the Sontarans encountered the Pureblood Sontarans. Due to the intervention of the Doctor, the cloned and pureblood Sontarans decided to pool their resources and Marshall Stave promised to remove the Sontarans' memory of Humans from the racepool. (DWM: Pureblood)

Styre examines the results of Experiment 5: Fluid deprivation. (DW: The Sontaran Experiment)

Many thousands of years later, at a time when the Earth had been abandoned for 10,000 years, the Sontarans were separated from the many human worlds like GalSec throughout Mutter's Spiral by a buffer zone. The Grand Strategic Council planned to invade the galaxy, but they had to abandon that plan when a scout, Field Major Styre, was killed while trying to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the humans. After this, the Doctor bluffed, telling the Sontarans that their battle plans had been captured, so they would have to call off their invasion. (DW: The Sontaran Experiment)

Rassilon Era

When these encounters with the Time Lords occurred in unknown, due to the difficulty in dating the Time Lord stories.

Though the Sontaran Linx, in the 12th century, merely considered the invasion of Gallifrey as a speculative possibility (DW: The Time Warrior), the Sontarans, in concert with the Vardans did invade, until beaten back by then-Lord President the Doctor. (DW: The Invasion of Time)

During another period of Time Lord history, the Warburg, led by General Sontar himself, the Warburg's supreme commander, and the Rutan Host convened on Gallifrey to meet face to face without violence. (PDA: The Infinity Doctors)

The Sontarans were also not 'allowed' to fight in the Last Great Time War, which according to General Staal was the greatest war of all time. (DW: The Sontaran Stratagem)