Sutekh
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Sutekh, also known as Sutekh the Destroyer, Setekh, (PROSE: Set Piece [+]Loading...["Set Piece (novel)","Set Piece"]) Set, (TV: The Legend of Ruby Sunday [+]Loading...["The Legend of Ruby Sunday (TV story)"], PROSE: Set Piece [+]Loading...["Set Piece (novel)","Set Piece"]) Seth, (TV: The Legend of Ruby Sunday [+]Loading...["The Legend of Ruby Sunday (TV story)"], PROSE: The Sands of Time [+]Loading...["The Sands of Time (novel)","The Sands of Time"]) Satan, Sadok. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Pyramids of Mars [+]Loading...["Doctor Who and the Pyramids of Mars (novelisation)"]) Sithifer (TV: The Legend of Ruby Sunday [+]Loading...["The Legend of Ruby Sunday (TV story)"]), or the Jackal, (PROSE: Going Once, Going Twice [+]Loading...["Going Once, Going Twice (short story)","Going Once, Going Twice"]) was an Osirian god who planned to destroy all life in the universe.
According to the Fourth Doctor, Egyptians called him the Typhonian Beast, and his followers on Earth referred to him as the High One. (TV: Pyramids of Mars [+]Loading...["Pyramids of Mars (TV story)"])
In Ice Warrior mythology, he was knowns as Ssethiis. (PROSE: GodEngine [+]Loading...["GodEngine (novel)"])
He feared all forms of life which might one day challenge his hegemony, and so became the destroyer of all living things. Beyond that, he believed his acts of destruction freed those he killed from the tyranny of hope and choice, instead delivering them with the certainty of death. After destroying Phaester Osiris, he was imprisoned, trapped inside a forcefield that paralysed him by Horus, his brother, (TV: Pyramids of Mars [+]Loading...["Pyramids of Mars (TV story)"]) or rather the essence of his brother Osiris, reborn in the body of Faction Paradox member Eliza. (AUDIO: The Judgment of Sutekh [+]Loading...["The Judgment of Sutekh (audio story)"]) Freed on 1920s Earth by his cult of followers, he faced the Fourth Doctor, who defeated him by tricking him into a time corridor. (TV: Pyramids of Mars [+]Loading...["Pyramids of Mars (TV story)"]) Many subsequent battles between Sutekh and incarnations of the Doctor were documented. (COMIC: Old Girl [+]Loading...["Old Girl (comic story)"], AUDIO: The Pyramid of Sutekh [+]Loading...["The Pyramid of Sutekh (audio story)"], etc.)
Eventually, Sutekh became acknowledged as the King of a pantheon of various deities, and symbolically as the "father and mother and other" to all of them. Among the Pantheon, he was the God of Death. By this account, Sutekh had evolved into godhood after managing to attach himself to the Doctor's TARDIS shortly after he was banished into the Time Vortex. He worked a long time to corrupt it, (TV: The Legend of Ruby Sunday [+]Loading...["The Legend of Ruby Sunday (TV story)"], Empire of Death [+]Loading...["Empire of Death (TV story)"]) acquiring the title of the One Who Waits, (TV: The Giggle [+]Loading...["The Giggle (TV story)"], The Devil's Chord [+]Loading...["The Devil's Chord (TV story)"]) before revealing himself to the Fifteenth Doctor through Susan Triad (TV: The Legend of Ruby Sunday [+]Loading...["The Legend of Ruby Sunday (TV story)"]) due to being frustrated by the mystery of Ruby Sunday's mother. (TV: Empire of Death [+]Loading...["Empire of Death (TV story)"])
Biography
Origins
Like in the Egyptian myths on Earth, Sutekh was the son of Geb, (AUDIO: Ozymandias [+]Loading...["Ozymandias (audio story)","Ozymandias"]) having been bred alongside Osiris (later reincarnated as Horus) to channel the power of Ra. (AUDIO: The Ship of a Billion Years [+]Loading...["The Ship of a Billion Years (audio story)","The Ship of a Billion Years"]) He was the husband of Nephthys, who was also his and Horus's sister. (PROSE: The Sands of Time [+]Loading...["The Sands of Time (novel)","The Sands of Time"])
Sutekh became "head of security" for the Osirian Court, being its most fearsome and powerful warrior, (AUDIO: The Judgment of Sutekh [+]Loading...["The Judgment of Sutekh (audio story)","The Judgment of Sutekh"]) the second and greatest of the "Three Divine Shields" who protected the sentient sun Ra (AUDIO: The Ship of a Billion Years [+]Loading...["The Ship of a Billion Years (audio story)","The Ship of a Billion Years"]) from such threats as the serpents created by the Great Houses, (AUDIO: Coming to Dust [+]Loading...["Coming to Dust (audio story)","Coming to Dust"]) such as Apep. (PROSE: Going Once, Going Twice [+]Loading...["Going Once, Going Twice (short story)","Going Once, Going Twice"]) He eventually intimidated the Great Houses into making peace with the Osirians by releasing a vampiric army of Mal'akhs on the medieval Mediterranean basin, making a credible claim to the ability to upset the structure of History in a major way. After they had served their purpose, he left his Mal'akh army behind. (AUDIO: Coming to Dust [+]Loading...["Coming to Dust (audio story)","Coming to Dust"])
The Ninth Doctor believed that Osirans, including Sutekh, had taken part in the ancient war which led to the destruction of the Aesirians, alongside many other powers such as the Dæmons, Euterpians, and the Time Lords. (COMIC: Hacked [+]Loading...["Hacked (comic story)"])
Becoming something greater
Jealous that Osiris' accomplishments civilising 660 worlds were being celebrated more than his own, (AUDIO: Coming to Dust [+]Loading...["Coming to Dust (audio story)","Coming to Dust"]) Sutekh killed him. (AUDIO: The Ship of a Billion Years [+]Loading...["The Ship of a Billion Years (audio story)","The Ship of a Billion Years"]) Believing that he deserved to take over the throne of the Osirian Court, since it owed its survival to him, he made himself even more powerful than his fellow Osirians, taming the forces of the Outer Desert, of which even Ra was afraid, (AUDIO: The Ship of a Billion Years [+]Loading...["The Ship of a Billion Years (audio story)","The Ship of a Billion Years"]) and making a bargain with the Kotturuh, who allowed him to carry their "Gift of Death" himself. (PROSE: The Guide to the Dark Times [+]Loading...["The Guide to the Dark Times (short story)","The Guide to the Dark Times"]) He became the king of the Pantheon, a group of powers beyond the universe. (TV: The Devil's Chord [+]Loading...["The Devil's Chord (TV story)"], The Legend of Ruby Sunday [+]Loading...["The Legend of Ruby Sunday (TV story)"])
At war with the universe
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After Osiris was resurrected as Horus in the body of Cousin Eliza, Sutekh declared a time war against Horus for the Osirian throne. (AUDIO: Ozymandias [+]Loading...["Ozymandias (audio story)","Ozymandias"]) As recalled by the Fourth Doctor, Sutekh destroyed his home planet Phaester Osiris and subsequently left a "trail of havoc across half the galaxy". During this time, he was called many names on every civilised world, including the Typhonian Beast, Set, Satan, and Sadok. (TV: Pyramids of Mars [+]Loading...["Pyramids of Mars (TV story)","Pyramids of Mars"]) Among the planets where Sutekh and the Osirans fought was Youkali. (PROSE: Return of the Living Dad [+]Loading...["Return of the Living Dad (novel)","Return of the Living Dad"]) The two armies fought a great battle in Egypt; at the end, Sutekh found his traitorous wife Nephthys and a heavily-wounded Horus in the Temple of Geb. Horus (in reality, just Eliza pretending to be Horus) begged Sutekh to finish the battle, complaining about being tired of fighting and Sutekh's boringness. Angered, Sutekh ripped out Horus' heart.
Elated at killing his opponent and winning the contest, Sutekh told Nephthys that he planned to erase Horus' name from the universe. However, she claimed that Faction Paradox would always remember and resist Sutekh's claim to the throne. Though Cousin Justine had gone into hiding, Sutekh read from Nephthys' mind that the Faction had allies in the 18th century.
On 16 October, 1764, Sutekh forced John Pennerton to direct the Society of Sigismondo di Rimini to declare war on Faction Paradox and seek out its members. Though the society had found no trace of Justine by 8 November, Sutekh felt an "intrusion" in Volanto. There he found Abelard Finton, who he tortured ruthlessly until he divulged that the timeship was in the Mediterranean Sea and Justine had returned to the Osirian Court. Sutekh then brought Finton to Pennerton and released them both from his control; Finton died shortly thereafter.
Going to the Mediterranean, Sutekh found not Justine's timeship but the barge of Geb, who was investigating Corwyn Marne's claim that Sutekh had left for Earth. When confronted, Geb said that he'd found Sutekh's body on Mars, barely alive, and buried him in a pyramid while a proper prison was built. Angry and outraged, Sutekh attacked Geb and dumped him in the Temple of Geb, just in time to watch an earlier version of Sutekh kill Horus.
Above the Osirian Court, Sutekh confronted the simulacrum copy of Justine, accompanied by an earlier version of Finton, in the Ship of a Billion Years. This simulacrum had been trained to resist Sutekh's mind control, and when he opened a direct channel between their minds during his attack, she lashed out with her shadow-weapon, revealing herself to be the real Justine, hidden behind a bio-screen built by Anubis. (AUDIO: The Judgment of Sutekh [+]Loading...["The Judgment of Sutekh (audio story)","The Judgment of Sutekh"]) The ensuing duel saw the two "wrestling in the oxidised dirt" of Mars, knocking the very world from its temporal foundations, making it "uncertain"; this caused the existence of the native species of Martians, who had been worshipping the Osirians as gods, to be reduced to a state of flux forever after; they "existed one moment, and did not the next," as Gustav explained. (PROSE: Going Once, Going Twice [+]Loading...["Going Once, Going Twice (short story)","Going Once, Going Twice"])
Ultimately, Horus succeeded in severing some of Sutekh's neural connections, dumped him on Mars, and called Geb to tell him to look there. At Sutekh's funeral, almost the entire Osirian Court came to pay its respects. Justine and Horus agreed to tell the Court that Sutekh had been cornered on Earth by Horus' seven-hundred-and-some fellow warriors. This version of events was repeated in the official records and legends of Earth and throughout the galaxy. (AUDIO: The Judgment of Sutekh [+]Loading...["The Judgment of Sutekh (audio story)","The Judgment of Sutekh"]) However, Sutekh would later be discovered imprisoned on Earth, not Mars; instead, only the Eye of Horus was kept on Mars to send a signal that maintained Sutekh's prison. (TV: Pyramids of Mars [+]Loading...["Pyramids of Mars (TV story)","Pyramids of Mars"]) Indeed, Sutekh himself would remember facing seven hundred and forty Osirians led by his brother as a real event. (PROSE: Whotopia: The Ultimate Guide to the Whoniverse [+]Loading...["Whotopia: The Ultimate Guide to the Whoniverse (reference book)","Whotopia: The Ultimate Guide to the Whoniverse"])
Imprisonment
The Fourth Doctor repeated to Sarah Jane Smith the claim that 740 Osirans led by Horus had cornered and defeated Sutekh on Earth. Sarah recognised the name from the 740 gods recorded in the tomb of Thutmose III.
As both the Doctor and Professor Marcus Scarman would later discover, Sutekh was entombed but alive in a pyramid in Saqqara in Egypt. The Doctor claimed that Horus left Sutekh in the tomb for seven thousand years by 1911. The Eye of Horus on Mars beamed a signal to suppress Sutekh's powers and hold him prisoner. The tales of the Osirans were remembered in Egyptian mythology. Sutekh still retained a cult of followers, such as Ibrahim Namin; (TV: Pyramids of Mars [+]Loading...["Pyramids of Mars (TV story)","Pyramids of Mars"]) after his imprisonment, he had taken on the name of "the Red God" and was recognised, though reviled, in the cults of ancient Egypt as a god of evil. The Legend of Sutekh, passed down through generations of worshippers of Horus, claimed that Sutekh's worshippers were invariably "dissolute of heart" and that they could be recognised by the reddening of the whites of their eyes. (PROSE: Background [+]Loading...["Background (DWPM 8 short story)","Background"])
In 1903, after receiving a wealth of information from the future, Grigori Rasputin foresaw, among other things, the coming of this Egyptian god. (AUDIO: The Wanderer [+]Loading...["The Wanderer (audio story)","The Wanderer"])
Freed by Scarman
In 1911, the archaeologist Professor Marcus Scarman excavated the inner chamber of the pyramid beneath which Sutekh was imprisoned, discovering Sutekh and thereby accidentally allowing him a chance of escape. Sutekh controlled Scarman's corpse, using it and Osiran service robots to construct an Osiran war missile in an English priory aimed at the Eye of Horus on Mars. The Fourth Doctor and Sarah were able to destroy the missile, but the Doctor fell under the psychic control of Sutekh's will as a result. He was made to take Scarman and the robots to Mars in his TARDIS.
Despite the Doctor's attempt to stop them after surviving an attempt on his life by one of Sutekh's robots, Scarman destroyed the Eye and freed Sutekh. Hurrying back to Earth, the Doctor defeated Sutekh by delaying his trip in a time corridor to the priory by moving the corridor's threshold to the far future, thus effectively ageing him to death; the Doctor thought he had lived for seven thousand years before succumbing. (TV: Pyramids of Mars [+]Loading...["Pyramids of Mars (TV story)","Pyramids of Mars"])
Survival and returns
According to one account, Sutekh escaped physical death, stepping "sideways" out of the universe into the Void where he would wait until the Tenth Doctor's lifetime. (COMIC: Old Girl [+]Loading...["Old Girl (comic story)"])
According to another set of accounts, Sutekh's body was destroyed, but his consciousness survived, and he rebuilt himself a body using an Osirian loom, (AUDIO: The Pyramid of Sutekh [+]Loading...["The Pyramid of Sutekh (audio story)"]) returning much faster to plague the Fourth Doctor (AUDIO: (AUDIO: The Age of Sutekh [+]Loading...["The Age of Sutekh (audio story)"], etc;) and the Seventh Doctor. (AUDIO: The Pyramid of Sutekh [+]Loading...["The Pyramid of Sutekh (audio story)"])
A later account picked up a Sutekh who had already battled one of the gods of Time at least once, adrift in space without a body. He noted that this was "not the first time". This account showed Sutekh being pulled into the realm of Neter-khertet and granted a new body by Nephthys, his sister-wife, with the assent of the other Osirians, in exchange for him acting as their agent. (WC: Sutekh the Heretic [+]Loading...["Sutekh the Heretic (webcast)"], COMIC: The Heretic [+]Loading...["The Heretic (comic story)"])
Yet another account suggested that Sutekh attached himself to the Doctor's TARDIS in flight through the Vortex soon after the Fourth Doctor banished him, riding along until the Fifteenth Doctor's day, (TV: Empire of Death [+]Loading...["Empire of Death (TV story)"]) although he was briefly banished to the Howling Void before braving his way back. (TV: The Legend of Ruby Sunday [+]Loading...["The Legend of Ruby Sunday (TV story)"])
Facing the Seventh Doctor
Transmission from Mars (webcast), The Age of Sutekh (audio story)
Several other accounts showed Sutekh escape from Mars and travel back in time to the reign of Hatshepsut, intending to coerce Tutmosis to usurp his mother's throne and start his reign of terror on the world. (AUDIO: The Eye of Horus [+]Loading...["The Eye of Horus (audio story)","The Eye of Horus"])
He thought he had destroyed the world by the time of the 21st century which surprised Russell Courtland who had predicted it. He went across the Earth devouring in his wake but left his worshippers till last. The Seventh Doctor tricked him by showing him the solar flare ravaged Earth in the 29th century. He went back in time to start over again, and this created an ouroboros loop. (AUDIO: The Tears of Isis [+]Loading...["The Tears of Isis (audio story)","The Tears of Isis"])
Further battles with the Fourth Doctor
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After escaping the Ouroboros loop he was trapped in by the Seventh Doctor, Sutekh later encountered the Fourth Doctor and Leela on the planet Drummond. Sutekh was using the Rene.net to control the populace to "Kill the Doctor!" and to transform Drummond into the new home of the Osirans. (AUDIO: Kill the Doctor! [+]Loading...["Kill the Doctor! (audio story)","Kill the Doctor!"], The Age of Sutekh [+]Loading...["The Age of Sutekh (audio story)","The Age of Sutekh"])
Agent of Nephthys
Resurrection
Finding himself drifting in space without a body, Sutekh reflected on his failure, but found himself mentally contacted by his sister-wife Nephthys, whose voice guided him back to Neter-khertet, the Land of the Dead. There, he found himself re-embodied for the "first time in millennia". She explained that she had been granted "permission" to save him by the other gods of Osiris's court, including Osiris himself. As she berated him for having gone "insane" and "forgot[ten his] place", he guessed that the gods had brought him back not out of kindness, but because they needed him to kill something. (WC: Sutekh the Heretic [+]Loading...["Sutekh the Heretic (webcast)"], COMIC: The Heretic [+]Loading...["The Heretic (comic story)"])
Nephthys confirmed this, explaining that the court had learned of the survival of the demon Azag, long thought defeated, who had become god and ruler of the Kaolathi. (COMIC: The Heretic [+]Loading...["The Heretic (comic story)"])
Saviour of Lakos
Sutekh's mind was then sent into that of Brunta Tukash, a general of the resistance of the planet Lakos, one of the planets in the dominion of the Kaolathi Empire, who was about to be burned as a heretic by the Kaolathi occupation force. Speaking into his mind on the pyre, Sutekh soon oriented himself, and, channeling his power into Tukash's body, allowed him to free himself from his bonds. Ignoring Tukash's protests that mercy was a virtue on which the Lakosians prided themselves, Sutekh slaughtered the Kaolathi, then galvanise the other Lakosians to fight savagely against their oppressors.
Even after the Kaolathi surrendered and made to retreat from the planet, Sutekh forced Tukash to order them all executed, and commanded the Lakosians to dedicate their sacrifice to the name of Sutekh. The power of the deaths was enough to allow Sutekh to free himself from Tukash's body and manifest in his true form. Despairing of what he had done while Sutekh was within him, Tukash asked the god to kill him, but Sutekh declined. (COMIC: The Heretic [+]Loading...["The Heretic (comic story)"]
War with the Kaolathi
With Brunta Tukash at his side, Sutekh took command of a space fleet of Lakosians, launching an all-out war against the Kaolathi. The first planet they attacked was Mahin, where, at Brunta's suggestion, they worked to liberate the native Mahins rather than simply kill as many Kaolathi as possible, with Sutekh reluctantly acknowledging the wisdom of the strategy, which would grow the Lakosian Resistance Army's forces exponentially. Meanwhile, learning of Sutekh's involvement, Azag ordered the Kaolathi's Emperor to pretend to surrender. As a result, as he travelled liberating world after world, Sutekh found no significant opposition. He grew increasingly irritated to be covered in praise and worship born of love rather than fear, and, eager to face the Kaolathi as soon as possible, attacked the Kahedra star system, where he guessed their forces might be amassed.
There, he slaughtered the Kaolathi army, before ordering the Lakosian fleet to head to Kaol itself while Sutekh travelled in a smaller ship to the Ice-Moon of Khyb, Azag's hiding place, with only a small retinue of Lakosians including Tukash. Azag pointed out to Sutekh that, as a "father to billions" who reaped worship made of love, Nephthys had tricked him into becoming a "true god", the very kind of deity he wished not to be, in the hope that it would change him. Azag was not content to humilitate Sutekh thus, however, revealing a trap of his own: he had made his lair within Khyb because it concealed an ancient weapon left there by another race of gods, capable of wiping out an entire galaxy. Before Sutekh could react, he activated it, destroying in one second not just Sutekh's own body, but the untold billions who now worshipped him. Though he did not love them as Nephthys hoped he would, he still felt that these followers "belonged" to him, and was plunged into a deep despair at his failure to salvage them. (COMIC: The Heretic [+]Loading...["The Heretic (comic story)"])
A new lease of life
However, Sutekh was surprised to awake once again, in a new body with paler fur, and face to face with Nephthys. While she had been instructed by Osiris to drag hm back to Neter-khertet as a prisoner, she disobeyed, instead granting Sutekh a new body and taking him to Nefsa D'Nep, a planet in the early universe where a temple to their pantheon stood. It was there, she explained, that the other gods had hidden Sutekh's Sa, which they had extracted from him to weaken him. She intended to return it to him, but they discovered that the amulet containing it had been stolen from the temple long ago by the Eltralla. (COMIC: "The Heretic: Epilogue" [+]Part of The Heretic, Loading...{"namedep":"The Heretic: Epilogue","1":"The Heretic (comic story)"})
Facing the Tenth Doctor
In the Void
According to yet another series of accounts, Sutekh survived his original encounter with the Fourth Doctor by "stepping sideways" at the last moment, remaining trapped in a sort of limbo state in the Void, alive and unaging, but once more unable to move, let alone leave. However, a fragment of Sutekh's mind whom he had planted in the biodata of his son Anubis before his imprisonment managed to take over Anubis's body and put into motion a plan to free Sutekh and remerge with him to recover his original body. While in the Void, Sutekh struck reluctant bargains with many of the other horrors banished there to have them follow him into the universe, to which, being a native of it, he was still more tethered than they. (COMIC: Old Girl [+]Loading...["Old Girl (comic story)","Old Girl"])
Return to power
After emerging back into the universe through the Circle of Transcendence, Sutekh spent some time hunting down two the abominations which whom he had bargained: he destroyed the King Nocturne altogether and cast the Destroyer back into the Circle. In truth, expecting the Tenth Doctor, who was present on the Shining Horizon [+]Loading...["Shining Horizon"] when Sutekh reemerged, to try and reverse the dimensional conduits to suck Sutekh back into the Void, Sutekh had deliberately "plugged" the Circle with the biomass of the Destroyer. Hence, when the Doctor tried to spring his trap, Sutekh redirected the energy towards himself, using it to rejuvenate his physical form. (COMIC: Old Girl [+]Loading...["Old Girl (comic story)","Old Girl"])
A war of gods
Draining some of Anubis's psyche to stabilise the result, Sutekh merged back with Anubekh and returned to his full power. However, before he could destroy the Doctor, the Time Lord addressed the other released gods (who included one of the Gods of Ragnarok and the Dragon). He pointed out how Sutekh had already betrayed two of the deities he had bargained with in the Void, also noting that so long as they existed in the physical realm, the gods counted as "life", and were thus the natural enemies of Sutekh. In the end, Dorothy Bell herself revealed her identity as the mortal incarnation of his own Hand of Sutekh to him. She used her abilities as the Hand to partially merge with Sutekh, trapping him in her embrace, and then pulled him back into the Void with her, giving up her own freedom for the universe and to save the Doctor from making this sacrifice in her place. (COMIC: Old Girl [+]Loading...["Old Girl (comic story)","Old Girl"])
Plaguing the Fifteenth Doctor
Evolving
One set of accounts suggested that after being banished to the Howling Void, Sutekh braved his way through the "darkness" and "pain" (TV: The Legend of Ruby Sunday [+]Loading...["The Legend of Ruby Sunday (TV story)"]) back into the Time Vortex, where he attached himself to the Doctor's TARDIS in flight through the Vortex soon after the Fourth Doctor banished him. Over time, as he was pummeled with the energies of the Vortex, (TV: Empire of Death [+]Loading...["Empire of Death (TV story)"]) Sutekh "evolved", becoming stronger and larger than before until he became a "Titan", (TV: Pyramids of Mars [+]Loading...["Pyramids of Mars (TotT TV story)"]) with Sutekh later claiming that he had "evolved into [his] true godhood". (TV: Empire of Death [+]Loading...["Empire of Death (TV story)"])
As the One Who Waits
Finding himself hiding in the Howling Void, Sutekh attached his essence to the Doctor's TARDIS adrift through time, "seducing" the vessel to become unfaithful to the Doctor. Waiting patiently for the right time to strike, (TV: The Legend of Ruby Sunday [+]Loading...["The Legend of Ruby Sunday (TV story)"]) he became known by the title of "the One Who Waits" (TV: The Giggle [+]Loading...["The Giggle (TV story)"], The Legend of Ruby Sunday [+]Loading...["The Legend of Ruby Sunday (TV story)"]) to his fellow Pantheon of Discord members. (TV: The Giggle [+]Loading...["The Giggle (TV story)"], The Devil's Chord [+]Loading...["The Devil's Chord (TV story)"]) While the Doctor remained unaware of Sutekh's machinations, (TV: The Legend of Ruby Sunday [+]Loading...["The Legend of Ruby Sunday (TV story)"]) a groaning sound (TV: Wild Blue Yonder [+]Loading...["Wild Blue Yonder (TV story)"], et. al) similar to that heard when Sutekh had previously projected his mind into the TARDIS (TV: Pyramids of Mars [+]Loading...["Pyramids of Mars (TV story)"]) was heard several times by the Doctor, beginning with the Fourteenth Doctor's encounter with the not-things at the edge of the universe after the TARDIS's interior suffered catastrophic damage. (TV: Wild Blue Yonder [+]Loading...["Wild Blue Yonder (TV story)"]) The groaning continued to persist into the Fifteenth Doctor's travels, who remarked upon its oddness but mostly rationalised it away. (TV: The Devil's Chord [+]Loading...["The Devil's Chord (TV story)"], Rogue [+]Loading...["Rogue (TV story)"], PROSE: Ruby Red [+]Loading...["Ruby Red (novel)"])
Furthermore, Sutekh exploited the TARDIS's perception filter, which reached a perimeter of 73 yards, to spread variations of a hidden "angel of death" to every time and place the Doctor's TARDIS landed. After many hundreds of years travelling through time and space, Sutekh had created enough versions of the "angel" to eliminate all life, including the remaining regions of existence where the TARDIS had not yet landed. (TV: The Legend of Ruby Sunday [+]Loading...["The Legend of Ruby Sunday (TV story)"]) (TV: Empire of Death [+]Loading...["Empire of Death (TV story)"])
By 2024, the "concept of the Angel" had become "strong enough" to manifest as Susan Triad, whose tech company in the 21st century contained a clue as to her true origins; the company name "Susan Triad Technology" could be shortened to "Sue Tech". Sutekh also aimed to deceive the Doctor by naming Susan after Susan Foreman, the Doctor's granddaughter, while giving her the initials "S. Triad", an anagram of TARDIS. (TV: The Legend of Ruby Sunday [+]Loading...["The Legend of Ruby Sunday (TV story)"]) (TV: Empire of Death [+]Loading...["Empire of Death (TV story)"])
Once the Toymaker managed to escape into the universe, he found the One Who Waits "hiding". Whilst the Toymaker had bested the Guardians of Time and Space, the dying Spy Master and "God", he opted to flee rather than challenge the One Who Waits to a game. He later told the Fourteenth Doctor of his decision to flee from the One Who Waits, with whom the Doctor was not familiar, (TV: The Giggle [+]Loading...["The Giggle (TV story)"]) something the Toymaker found "hilarious". The Toymaker thus decided not to spoil the surprise, (PROSE: The Giggle [+]Loading...["The Giggle (novelisation)"]) instead cryptically telling the Doctor it was "someone else's game". (TV: The Giggle [+]Loading...["The Giggle (TV story)"]) In his novelisation of his battle with the Doctor, the Toymaker promised the Doctor's inevitable encounter with the One Who Waits would be novelised as Doctor Who and the I'm Not Going to Tell You. (PROSE: The Giggle [+]Loading...["The Giggle (novelisation)"])
As they were banished out of the universe, the Toymaker's child Maestro snarled a warning to the Fifteenth Doctor that the One Who Waits was "almost here". (TV: The Devil's Chord [+]Loading...["The Devil's Chord (TV story)"])
Revealing himself
In 2024, the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby Sunday returned to UNIT HQ, finally intending to follow up on the mystery of the mysterious woman they'd been seeing everywhere the TARDIS landed, as well as that of the identity of Ruby Sunday's mother. Informed that the woman's primary incarnation was tech billionaire Susan Triad, they sent Mel Bush to investigate while the Doctor and Ruby used UNIT's Time Window to review the night Ruby was left at the church on Ruby Road. Within the Time Window, they were able to see the cloud of malignant darkness clinging to a second version of the TARDIS, which they had not previously known to be there. Back in the UNIT operations room, the team realised that the same evil force existed around the present-day version of the TARDIS, merely cloaked from human sight. (TV: The Legend of Ruby Sunday [+]Loading...["The Legend of Ruby Sunday (TV story)"]) Sutekh had been driven to reveal himself by his increasing frustration with the mystery of the woman on Ruby Road, the one piece of knowledge in all of time and space which eluded him. (TV: Empire of Death [+]Loading...["Empire of Death (TV story)"])
Harriet Arbinger, Sutekh's Harbinger, who had infiltrated UNIT as its Archivist, chose this moment to reveal her true nature and identify her master, who uncloaked himself and morphed into the form of a gigantic hound standing over the TARDIS. Simultaneously, at the conference hall where Susan Triad was giving a talk, she became aware of her own nature and was possessed altogether by Sutekh, who spoke to the Doctor through her, mocking him for having believed Susan Triad might be his granddaughter Susan, and announcing that he was going to destroy the entire universe. (TV: The Legend of Ruby Sunday [+]Loading...["The Legend of Ruby Sunday (TV story)"]) The Doctor would go on to describe this new form as being akin to "a Titan". (TV: Pyramids of Mars [+]Loading...["Pyramids of Mars (TotT TV story)"])
Empire of Death
Confronting the Fifteenth Doctor and his friends inside the Time Window, Sutekh explained to him the means of his survival, and clarified that every single version of Susan Triad he had spread through history — everywhere the TARDIS had landed — had become one of his "Angels of Death", unleashing Sutekh's dust of death throughout the Web of Time. However, the Doctor observed that something seemed to be holding Sutekh back from killing him; he would later come to realise that Sutekh wished to pierce through the mystery of Ruby Sunday's mother, the one piece of knowledge which eluded him, and he had decided to keep the Doctor and his friends alive until they solved it for him. While the humanoids escaped in the Memory TARDIS, Sutekh stayed in UNIT HQ, where he held court with his few remaining, zombified servants. For some time he delighted in reigning over the now-empty universe, paradoxically devastated and left in ruins in every single time zone. (TV: Empire of Death [+]Loading...["Empire of Death (TV story)"])
Death to death
Eventually, the Doctor, Ruby and Mel figured out that they could track down Ruby's mother using the complete DNA database of every British citizen which existed in 2046 as part of the apparel of fascistic prime minister Roger ap Gwilliam's machine of state. Sutekh remotely possessed and killed Mel, using it to spy on the other two, but the Doctor realised as much, and they resolved to use the name which ap Gwilliam's computer system had allowed them to find as bait. Returned to UNIT HQ by Harriet, the Doctor and Ruby got close to Sutekh using the lure of the monitor displaying the name, then dramatically shattered it before leashing Sutekh to the TARDIS, whose take-off was triggered by the Doctor using a whistle he'd found in the Memory TARDIS. The Doctor dragged Sutekh into the Time Vortex, where his powers, touching every time-zone he'd corrupted, cancelled themselves out, bringing "death to death" and reversing everything he'd done, resurrecting everyone and every world he'd killed. With his work done, the Doctor somberly cut the lifeline securing Sutekh to the TARDIS, causing him to lose protection within the Vortex and disintegrate. (TV: Empire of Death [+]Loading...["Empire of Death (TV story)"])
Other references
When the Skith Leader scanned the Tenth Doctor's mind, Sutekh was among the alien creatures shown to him. (COMIC: The First [+]Loading...["The First (comic story)","The First"])
In the course of his astral travels, William Burroughs once found himself in "an Egyptian court torn apart by the conflict between Horus and Sutekh". (PROSE: The Ugly Spirit [+]Loading...["The Ugly Spirit (short story)","The Ugly Spirit"])
Personality
Sutekh was somewhat paranoid, fearing that all lifeforms might potentially rise up against him. This paranoia led to his decision to destroy all life wherever he found it, with his name being known and abominated on all civilised worlds throughout the universe. Despite this, he was extremely intelligent and patient. (TV: Pyramids of Mars [+]Loading...["Pyramids of Mars (TV story)","Pyramids of Mars"])
Even the Mal'akh he had enslaved, whose will he broke until they told him that they loved him, were but a means to an end for Sutekh, (AUDIO: Coming to Dust [+]Loading...["Coming to Dust (audio story)","Coming to Dust"]) as they were to Upuat after he freed them from Suteh's control. (AUDIO: The Ship of a Billion Years [+]Loading...["The Ship of a Billion Years (audio story)","The Ship of a Billion Years"])
When speaking to the Tenth Doctor on the reasons for all his actions, Sutekh justifies himself by claiming that evil and cruelty are inevitable in life, so he was merely taking everything to its logical end of becoming dust and darkness. He further claimed that he was liberating all life from having the terror of choice and the tyranny of hope to give them the certainty of death instead, therefore in his mind he was being good by ending suffering throughout the universe, a logic that the Doctor noted was wrong in the end. (COMIC: Old Girl [+]Loading...["Old Girl (comic story)","Old Girl"])
Sutekh showed himself to be sadistic; such as gloating to the Fifteenth Doctor when his trap was sprung and to UNIT about his godhood. (TV: The Legend of Ruby Sunday)
Powers and abilities
Sutekh possessed immense power: he could change the course of history and destroy entire star systems. The Fourth Doctor once took Sarah Jane Smith to an alternate 1980, where the Earth had become a ruined and abandoned wasteland orbiting a dead star due to the destruction Sutekh caused. According to the Doctor, not even the Time Lords could stop Sutekh when he was in possession of his full powers. (TV: Pyramids of Mars [+]Loading...["Pyramids of Mars (TV story)","Pyramids of Mars"]) Lolita said that if he became king of the Osirian Court, he would become the single greatest threat to life in the universe. (AUDIO: The Judgment of Sutekh [+]Loading...["The Judgment of Sutekh (audio story)","The Judgment of Sutekh"])
Even when he was trapped and his powers limited, he was able to contain the explosive force of gelignite from miles away, although this was difficult and could be easily disrupted by a simple distraction. He had telekinesis, enabling him to levitate the TARDIS key. He boasted that he could keep his victims alive for centuries in excruciating pain, and his mental abilities allowed him to easily dominate others, making them puppets to his will. He also appeared to be able to telepathically read other beings, even those established to have psychic defenses, (TV: Pyramids of Mars [+]Loading...["Pyramids of Mars (TV story)","Pyramids of Mars"], AUDIO: The Judgment of Sutekh [+]Loading...["The Judgment of Sutekh (audio story)","The Judgment of Sutekh"]) and he could monitor progress several thousand miles away with the aid of Osiran computer technology. This included reanimating corpses for servants, as he did with Marcus Scarman. He could focus his power through these servants, enabling them to burn people to death with a touch, and was able to destroy the Eye of Horus on Mars from Earth when Scarman was within a few metres of it. Whenever he used his powers, his eyes glowed green. He could project a mental image of himself anywhere, easily breaking through the defensive mechanisms of the Doctor's TARDIS to do so. (TV: Pyramids of Mars [+]Loading...["Pyramids of Mars (TV story)","Pyramids of Mars"])
After emerging back into the universe and before his original body was completely recovered, Sutekh was still capable of obliterating a whole planet with merely a hand gesture. He was powerful enough to easily destroy King Nocturne, a conceptual being, and demonstrated his skills as a warrior by overpowering a group of other god-like abominations from the Void itself. He had the ability to blast beams of green energy from his eyes and hands to kill or disintegrate his enemies into dust. (COMIC: Old Girl [+]Loading...["Old Girl (comic story)","Old Girl"])
Despite other Osirians needing a barge to handle the heat of the star Ra, Sutekh could safely stand next to Ra without any protection. (AUDIO: The Ship of a Billion Years [+]Loading...["The Ship of a Billion Years (audio story)","The Ship of a Billion Years"]) He was also able to stop and reverse the materialisation of Mortega's timeship. (AUDIO: Body Politic [+]Loading...["Body Politic (audio story)","Body Politic"])
Sutekh was extremely intelligent, with an immense knowledge of Osiran technology, time-travel, and other alien sciences. He was very charismatic and manipulative when he wants to, capable of creating a long and complex plan of recovering his original body, have revenge on the Doctor, and tricking other god-like beings to ally with him before betraying them. (COMIC: Old Girl [+]Loading...["Old Girl (comic story)","Old Girl"]) He also set a master plan to use the Doctor's TARDIS to have his revenge on the Doctor and bring his deathly gift to the planet Earth. (TV: The Legend of Ruby Sunday [+]Loading...["The Legend of Ruby Sunday (TV story)"])
Behind the scenes
- In real-life ancient Egyptian mythology, Sutekh is one of the many names for Set, the god of the deserts.
- When Pyramids of Mars [+]Loading...["Pyramids of Mars (TV story)","Pyramids of Mars"] came out on DVD, included in it was a pseudo documentary called "Oh Mummy! [+]Loading...["Oh Mummy! (home video)","Oh Mummy!"]", which told the fictional account of how Sutekh landed the role in the story and his life afterwards.
- At Jon Culshaw's suggestion, The Box of Terrors [+]Loading...["The Box of Terrors (audio story)","The Box of Terrors"] was originally to feature Sutekh, alongside Omega, as a cataclysmic villain for the Doctors to face. However, Sutekh did not make it into the story, with Culshaw citing rights issues. The Six was used instead. (BFX: The Box of Terrors [+]Loading...["The Box of Terrors (audio story)","The Box of Terrors"])
