Sontaran Empire
The Sontaran Empire was a large empire of the Sontarans located in the Mutter's Spiral which fought the Rutan Host in a long war which lasted millennia.
Overview
The empire had numerous high ranking bodies such as Sontaran High Command and the Grand Strategic Council. An elite security detachment of the Sontaran Armed Forces was the Koda. The Sontaran Special Space Service served as highly trained commando units that were deployed in engagements that required infiltration teams to secure a target. The Sontaran Medal of Pacification was awarded to those soldiers who had achieved ten thousand kills of alien species. Laws were governed by the Sontaran Military Code. The Sontaran Anthem was the musical piece of the Sontaran Empire, played when regiments were marching. Sontaran breeding planets were planets where Sontarans bred their clones.
Positions within the military hierarchy were colour coordinated. Sontarans who wore green armour were the army's medical and environmental division; one of their duties included the oversight of the cloning vats and the hatcheries. Sontarans preferred a clean death in battle to being patched up. In contrast, members of a ship's crew usually wore blue armour. (PROSE: Lords of the Storm)
Within the Sontaran Empire, it was the policy to upload the laws of territories it had acquired, except when those laws conflicted with the guiding principles of the Sontaran military code. According to this code, anything that was not expressly permitted was considered forbidden. Furthermore, under the laws of the Sontaran Military Code, the death sentence was mandatory for all crimes. (PROSE: Shakedown) One of the highest authorities within the Empire was the Sontaran Imperator. (PROSE: The Empire of Glass)
Military units
The Sontaran military was divided into several different units, regiments and fleets:
- Fifth Sontaran Army Space Fleet (TV: The Time Warrior)
- G3 Military Assessment Survey (TV: The Sontaran Experiment)
- Sontaran Special Space Service (TV: The Invasion of Time)
- Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet (TV: The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky)
- Koda (PROSE: Lords of the Storm)
- Ninth Sontaran Army (PROSE: The Empire of Glass)
- Ninth Sontaran Battle Group (TV: The Two Doctors)
History
In the distant past, the Empire was known as the Sontara Warburg. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible)
In the 13th century, the Sontaran Commander Linx of the Fifth Sontaran Army Space Fleet claimed Earth and its satellites and moons in the name of the Empire. (TV: The Time Warrior)
One of the priorities of Sontaran soldiers is the capture of a TARDIS, (PROSE: The Eight Doctors) a feat which was accomplished during the Sontaran invasion of Earth in 2009. General Staal of the Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet anticipated the death of the Tenth Doctor at the hands of the Sontaran Empire, only to be destroyed along with his mothership by Luke Rattigan. (TV: The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky)
Commander Kaagh, the sole survivor of the Earth invasion force, plotted to avenge the Sontaran Empire. However, he was defeated by Sarah Jane Smith, who assured him from experience that the Sontaran Empire would last for another ten thousand years. (TV: The Last Sontaran) The shame of this defeat led Kaagh to leave the Empire and join with Mrs Wormwood of the Bane. (TV: Enemy of the Bane)
After building an army, the New Dalek Paradigm constructed a series of space fortresses along their border with the Sontaran Empire. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe)
In 16087, Field Major Styre travelled to Earth, which had been uninhabited for ten thousand years, to assess the strengths and weaknesses of humanity to plan an invasion of the Mutter's Spiral. As they also used terullian technology, and there was no terullian in Mutter's Spiral, it is possible that the Empire left the home galaxy for a while, possibly to find new ways of destroying the Rutans. (TV: The Sontaran Experiment)
Alternate timelines
In a timeline where Rassilon had joined forces with the Cybermen, the Sontaran Empire was deemed a threat by the Cyberiad and, save for Sontar itself, had been destroyed by the Cybermen in the 24th century. Faced with annihilation, Sontaran-Prime ordered the Last Great Sontaran War Fleet to recruit the Tenth Doctor to lead their armies. Managing to claim control of a CyberKing, the Doctor was able to halt the invasion before a Cyber-Ark converted the planet and felled the Empire. This timeline was later negated through the efforts of a remorseful Rassilon and the Twelfth Doctor. (COMIC: Supremacy of the Cybermen)
