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The Ice Warriors and Ice Lords were a race of reptilian humanoids from the planet Mars, identified by the Eleventh Doctor as cyborgs. (TV: Cold War)
The Gandorans, who created the first Ice Warriors, called them the Saurian Evolutionaries. (AUDIO: Lords of the Red Planet) They were also known as native Martians and simply Martians (TV: The Waters of Mars) but at times were given the derogatory name of Greenies. (PROSE: Transit)
Biology
Adult, fully armoured Ice Warriors were large, imposing reptilian humanoids, up to seven feet tall. Unarmoured, they had flattened, scaly faces with sharp fangs and thin green tongues. (PROSE: Legacy, PROSE: The Medusa Effect, TV: Cold War) They had either five (COMIC: Ascendance) or three fingers, tipped with sharp claws. (TV: Cold War) At least some Ice Warriors had large black eyes, (COMIC: Descendance) although Skaldak's were red. (TV: Cold War)
They had skeletons much like humans, though with flatter skulls and wider eye sockets. (COMIC: Ascendance) Females were built more slightly than males, and had spiny dorsal crests which were sexually attractive in a manner analogous to the breasts of a human female. (PROSE: GodEngine, Transit)
They preferred cold climates and could be killed by extreme heat, though small fires were no more dangerous to them than to a human. (COMIC: Descendance) Due to differences in atmosphere and gravity, in Earth-like environments, Ice Warriors perpetually wheezed and tended to move slowly, (TV: The Seeds of Death) though they could move fast when needed. (PROSE: Legacy, TV: Cold War) They spoke in a drawn-out hiss. (TV: The Ice Warriors)
Ice Warriors lived a long time. Some Martians in 1997 had been alive when Shakespeare was writing his plays. (PROSE: The Dying Days) The typical lifespan of an Ice Warrior was three hundred Earth years. They had a complicated genetic structure and were herbivores. (PROSE: GodEngine)
Paul Webster, speculating the Ice Warriors were "more used to nitrogen", knocked out Sub-Commander Sstast with an oxygen cylinder. According to the Fifth Doctor, the Ice Warriors were cold-blooded. (AUDIO: Red Dawn)
Society and culture
The planetary identification glyph of the Martians was a triangle overlaid with a lightning bolt with an artificial burning sun at its centre. (PROSE: GodEngine)
Honour
Ice Warriors had a strong sense of personal honour. After the Third Doctor saved the life of the Ice Lord Izlyr, he felt obligated to help the Doctor escape. (TV: The Curse of Peladon) Ice Warriors disliked lying, though they would do so when necessary. (PROSE: Legacy) They believed that a victim of murder would not rest in peace until their killer had atoned for the crime. (PROSE: The Medusa Effect) When challenged to a ritual blood duel, an Ice Warrior would spit at an opponent's face. Terrorism was anathema. (PROSE: GodEngine) An Ice Warrior motto was "Attack one of us, attack all of us". Ice Warriors considered it incredibly dishonourable to remove their armour, and thus only removed it under the most extreme circumstances. (TV: Cold War) Even before becoming warriors, the Martian species were seldom seen outside their armour, or otherwise wore similar-looking shells. The Fifth Doctor immediately identified a Martian from this time period as an Ice Warrior, even before he knew he was on Mars, (AUDIO: The Judgement of Isskar) while the Eleventh Doctor later claimed he never saw a Martian outside of their armour. (TV: Cold War)
The strict code of honour came from earlier Martians, before they became a warrior species again and their planet began dying. At that time they only hunted for food and avoided physically fighting with one another. In fact, the word "warrior" did not exist in that era. Their belief in honour was reflected in a "gift economy", a system in which people did not pay for things but instead were given freely and gave something in return. In these early years, the Martians were more involved in the arts and crafts rather than warfare. They began to change after disastrous climatic changes. They were also a proud people who refused to admit a problem existed. (AUDIO: The Judgement of Isskar)
This sense of honour was either not shared among all Ice Warriors, or otherwise failed to match that of humans' expectations. When Lord Slaadek and his warriors tried terraforming Mars to wipe out the 300,000 human colonists on it, Professor Boston Schooner didn't understand how he could be "so wrong" in thinking "they were noble creatures. A once-proud race with a code of chivalry." The Eighth Doctor told him, "I don't know, Professor, though I have to ask: which part of the word 'warrior' didn't you understand?" (AUDIO: Deimos)
Religion
Many of the Ice Warrior myths and legends originated in the Primal Wars. They worshipped the Osirians Oras (PROSE: GodEngine) and Claatris (the god of war) (PROSE: The Crystal Bucephalus). They also worshipped Tuburr, who was thought to be the one who made the Ice Warriors into warriors. In the early years of Ice Warrior civilisation, the young would be sent to the surface as a ritual trial of endurance. If they survived, they took the oath of Tuburr and tried to pull the Sword of Tuburr from a brazier, after which they were considered adults. (PROSE: Legacy, COMIC: Descendance) Martian law forbade any forging of copies of the holy Sword. (PROSE: GodEngine)
A typical Ice Lord funerals involved cremations, but for a short time in their history they froze the bodies in coffin-sized blocks of ice - a symbol of wealth on the water-scarce planet - and sealed them in crystal spires, a practice inspired by the Osirians. Tomb raiding was punished by summary execution and territorial reparations by the raider's clan. (PROSE: The Dying Days) Martian tombs, pyramids and burial of the dead was similar to Egyptian civilisation, suggesting that both were influenced by the Osirian race. During funeral rites, the deceased wore metallic clothes known as warding shrouds to protect them before the cremation. (PROSE: GodEngine)
Society
Ice Warriors lived in clans and had a hereditary caste system. Fathers passed on land to their adult sons. (COMIC: Descendance) Advancement in the hierarchy was decided on merit and skill. (PROSE: Legacy) The skill of cooking was highly prized. (PROSE: GodEngine) This feudal way of life continued until the era of the Galactic Federation. (TV: The Curse of Peladon) At the start of Ice Warrior culture, conflicts were along clan lines, and struggles for power between different families became more common. When the Eighth Doctor and Stacy came to Mars in this time, they became involved in a fight between the Balazarus Mons and Darsus Mons families. (COMIC: Descendance, Ascendance)
Known clans include:
Marriages were short affairs, made when the participants were young and intended to preserve bloodlines of clans. (PROSE: Placebo Effect) Women and family were sacred, though women sometimes ate their young. (COMIC: Cold Blooded War!) When a marriage bond was broken, it was called Fass-jul-Aqq. (PROSE: GodEngine)
Much as in ancient Rome, it was not unusual to find graffiti scratched onto walls, often virility symbols young males used to attract females. Martian settlements were typically known as "nests", (COMIC: Emperor of the Daleks!) a term that was extended to military installations. At the centre of a nest was a room called the Queen's Chamber. Military nests were circular, built around a single spiral passageway referred to as Xssixss, the mouth of which was the only entrance or exit. (PROSE: Transit)
The Ice Warriors prided beauty and aesthetics above everything else except for those items related to war. The Ice Warriors were not known for their sense of humour. (PROSE: The Medusa Effect) Nevertheless, Bernice Summerfield wrote a thesis on that very subject and knew at least one "hilarious" Martian joke. (COMIC: Emperor of the Daleks!) In fact, Martian humour was occasionally elusive to humans and most of it was lost in translation. (PROSE: The Dying Days)
By the time of the Federation, King Peladon considered the term "Ice Warrior" — which "many" still referred to them as — "a xenophobic throwback to a violent heritage", but also knew that this heritage was one "some sought to resurrect". (AUDIO: The Prisoner of Peladon)
Titles
- Supreme Lord - a high ranking position. (PROSE: Legacy)
- Grand Marshall - the staff of a Grand Marshal was an important relic. (PROSE: Legacy)
- War Lord - a normal Ice Warrior with more importance. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Ice Warriors)
- Sub-Commander - (AUDIO: Red Dawn)
- Marshal - wore decorative helmets with jewels. (TV: The Seeds of Death, PROSE: Legacy)
- Shsurr - a title that roughly translated to mean M'lady. (PROSE: Legacy)
- Scholastor - this position was one held by scholars and scientists. (PROSE: GodEngine)
- Abbot - a title held by religious figures. (PROSE: GodEngine)
Technology
Armour
Ice Warriors almost always wore some form of "bio-armour" that matched their skin. This included a half-face helmet and a red blast-screen over each eye. Ice Warrior nobility ("Ice Lords") wore light armour with sleek, bullet-shaped, metallic helmets, simple breastplate and cape. (TV: The Seeds of Death) An Ice Marshall's helmet contained circuitry beneath its surface and acted as an additional nervous system for its wearer after it bonded with the cranium. (AUDIO: Thin Ice) Common warriors had much heavier and bulkier, intricately patterned. full-body armour, and stubby helmets (some designs of which also placed blast screens over the ears). (TV: The Curse of Peladon)
Their exoskeletal armour melded with the body of their wearer and an Ice Warrior was described as being one with their armour. (AUDIO: Thin Ice) This armour consisted of carapaces and helmets grown in nutrient tanks and cybernetically augmented to provide the wearer with increased strength, reaction time, spectral sensitivity and biological efficiency. It also gave them a direct link to the Martian battle net. Finally, it boosted the efficiency of their waste management systems. (PROSE: GodEngine) The armour technology included locked-sequence communicators and induced muscular hydraulics. (AUDIO: Thin Ice) The armour was tough enough to protect them from a swing of an axe. (PROSE: The Silent Stars Go By) This armour could also be remotely controlled with sonic technology. (TV: Cold War)
By the late 26th century, some sects of Ice Warriors had undergone extensive cybernetic alteration. An implant at the base of the brain connected their armour directly to their nervous systems, making it a part of their physical makeup. These Ice Warriors also had artificial membranes inside their throats, allowing them to filter out gases not necessary for their survival. (PROSE: The Medusa Effect)
The armour was chiefly designed to protect the wearer from extreme cold; however, a rapid drop in temperature could overwhelm its systems. (TV: Cold War)
Weapons
Though Ice Warriors had small sonic weapons in the wrist of their armour as a personal defence weapon, (TV: The Ice Warriors) as well as making use of sonic disruptors as handheld firearms, (AUDIO: The Prisoner of Peladon) they tended to use rifles and portable artillery that utilised sonic instead of kinetic or energy damage. (COMIC: 4-Dimensional Vistas) They also made use of sonic grenades that operated by emitting a sonic impulse which caused a violent implosion of the eardrums of anyone within the vicinity of the blast radius. (AUDIO: Thin Ice) Their sonic guns could be disrupted by the Doctor's sonic screwdriver, although it used up a lot of power. To counter this problem, the Ice Warriors used swords and battle axes. (PROSE: The Silent Stars Go By)
They also used genetically-engineered weapons, such as a bacteriological weapon based on Martian sleeping fever, (PROSE: GodEngine) as well as the insidious Red Death which was programmed to target individuals with a specific DNA pattern. (PROSE: The Dying Days)
During the 22nd century Dalek invasion, the Ice Warriors had a superweapon named the GodEngine, built from technology left over by the Osirians, god-like visitors to Mars long before. The GodEngine could destroy a star by making it go supernova; its deployment was prevented by the Seventh Doctor. (PROSE: GodEngine)
Terraforming
The Ice Warriors were capable of engineering planetary ecosystems to better suit their needs; from their perspective the process was known as "aresforming". (PROSE: The Dying Days) They could deploy seeds on a planet which altered the environment and made it an icy world. (TV: The Seeds of Death) Their vessels were equipped with munitions that could knock a planet out of its orbit. (PROSE: Mission to Magnus)
Transportation
Martian rockets had remained unchanged for a hundred thousand years and followed the same technological development of tens of thousands of worlds in the galaxy. One of the reasons why the Martians had never conquered their solar system or indeed the rest of the galaxy was scarcity of resources. Their warships used a propulsion system based on electromagnetism that emitted no heat and was capable of playing havoc with primitive guidance systems. (PROSE: The Dying Days)
On their homeworld of Mars, the Ice Warriors used air cars. (COMIC: Descendance)
Other
Martians prided themselves on secrecy. They made use of Chameleon fields to hide certain locations. The Ice Warriors made use of this advanced form of solid holography to pack out their fleets.
They bio-engineered a type of fungus for use as a form of illumination.
A notable interrogation tool designed specifically for use on humans was the brain-rack. It created artificial neural pathways in the human mind which dominated the existing thought processes and ultimately ensured obedience in the subject. These machines were said to have no harmful side effects and the process wore off after a week or so when the artificial engrammes began to decay and the natural pathways reasserted themselves. Seen as a potential brainwashing tool, the brain-rack also increasing learning rates by three hundred percent. (PROSE: GodEngine)
History
Early history
The original Saurian Evolutionaries, later known as Ice Warriors, were created by the Gandorans as a slave warrior race via forced evolution of the non-sentient, turtle-like Saurians. While the original batch of Ice Warriors, used by Gandoran dictator Zaadur to slaughter her own people, was killed, the Doctor, knowing that they would once rule the planet, speculated that Quendril either had more of them created at a later point, or that they evolved naturally from the Saurians. (AUDIO: Lords of the Red Planet)
Accounts differ as to the downfall of the Ice Warriors, with some mentioning being at their peak and active thousands of years BC, (TV: Cold War) and others claiming their atmosphere to have been destroyed "centuries" before the 21st century, (AUDIO: Red Dawn) or even millions of years BC. (AUDIO: Deimos)
At some point, a group of Ice Warriors led by Lord Arakssor were convicted for warmongering. Their sentence was to life imprisonment in a prison in Antarctica. An Ice Warrior attacked the prison in an attempt to escape. However, this flooded the prison, trapping everyone beneath the ice in suspended animation. Looking at the body of the Seventh Doctor, who was also trapped beneath the ice, Genevieve Marceau estimated this time as millions of years before 2012. (AUDIO: Frozen Time)
The Ice Warriors were once visited by the godlike Osirians, who cruelly and callously used them as little more than labourers on their construction projects. Millions of years BC, the Martians were a migratory species. They evolved to the point that all their waste products were recycled. (PROSE: GodEngine)
Ca. 59,000 BC, the Ice Warriors were part of the Empire of the Gubbage Cones. (PROSE: The Crystal Bucephalus)
At some unknown point in the past, the species that became known as the Ice Warriors built a gigantic generation ship that would later become known as Phobos and colonised Mars. Human astronomers would mistake the ship for a natural moon of Mars. (PROSE: Crimson Dawn)
The Martian Industrial Revolution took place at the same time as the Pliocene Era on Earth. (PROSE: The Dying Days)
Some exploration of other planets was attempted. Varga went to Earth, but his ship was trapped in a glacier for thousands of years. Some time after this, the Ice Warrior’s civilisation went into decline as Mars became more inhospitable. (TV: The Ice Warriors, PROSE: Legacy)
As Mars became colder, the Ice Warriors adapted to use what the Eleventh Doctor called "survival armour" to survive in the freezing cold temperates. (TV: Cold War)
Circa 5000 BC, the Ice Warriors realised that complete devotion to the concepts of war would destroy their species in the same manner as the Osirians. Using their legends and race memories, they created a peaceful religion that taught pacifism and compassion. This became the doctrine of the Order of Oras. (PROSE: GodEngine)
Circa 3000 BC — by Professor Grisenko's reckoning — the Ice Warriors had a mighty empire and a fleet. The fleet was led by the Nix Tharsis and commanded by Grand Marshall Skaldak. In unknown circumstances, Skaldak was trapped under the ice of the North Pole on Earth and was frozen for thousands of years. (TV: Cold War)
The fall of the Ice Warriors
At some point, the Martian civilisation was made of peaceful people who were not warriors but artisans who hunted for food and never experienced war. In this era, their world was a thriving planet with the native sentient species thriving for twelve thousand years. Though they preferred the cold, one settlement was built in the equator but the construction of its shelled shaped buildings allowed for a cooler environment and waterways kept the populace fulfilled. Their sense of honour stretched back from this time as their civilisation was based on a gift economy in which things were given freely and receivers gave something back in return. It was a world of craftsmen, builders and farmers which built wondrous pyramids on their home planet. (AUDIO: The Judgement of Isskar) During this early period, Martian cities were noted as being much like those on Earth. Food waste and plant matter was left on the streets. (PROSE: The Dying Days)
However, a visit by the Fifth Doctor and his companion Amy led to the fall of the race. The two time travellers were looking for a decaying segment of the Key to Time, one of which was took the form of a pyramid's capstone. The segment had begun its decay, causing earthquakes. The Doctor and Amy, along with Zara and Harmonious 14 Zink, who were also looking for the segments, reached the top of the pyramid. Zara, who was a sentient tracer, activated the segment, leaving with Zink's time ring. This led to the formation of a gravity well which sent earthquakes and hurricanes across the planet for three decades. These devastated the Martian civilisation. Some managed to get off world but most remained on Mars where they fought amongst themselves for food and shelter. After thirty years, the energies from the segment of the Key to Time had been spent and the ground had settled. What remained of their race emerged onto their world where they planned to rebuild, even if it took them a thousand years. (AUDIO: The Judgement of Isskar)
Despite this honourable goal, the Ice Lord Izdaal had been observing the sky. His studies determined that their atmosphere was no longer capable of keeping out radiation from outer space. This would eventually kill them all. He told the government that their turmoil was not over and with the evidence of sickening children, he declared that their world was no longer sustainable. (AUDIO: The Judgement of Isskar) He was ignored by his people. Izdaal made the ultimate sacrifice. To prove himself right, he elected to step outside and face the Red Dawn, knowing he would die. (AUDIO: Red Dawn) His death led to his people coming to the same conclusion and they worked to survive, slowly becoming a conqueror race that took what they wanted from others. (AUDIO: The Judgement of Isskar) A group of Ice Warriors remained in suspended animation on Mars to protect Izdaal's tomb. Risking never being woken up, Izdaal's guardians lay inside their tombs waiting for a lifeform with enough honourable intentions to make it past the biometric locks inside the tomb, having "much" to offer to the Ice Warriors as they would to any Earth lifeforms that would discover the tomb. (AUDIO: Red Dawn)
At some point prior to his travels to ancient Mars, the Fifth Doctor was surprised that there were Ice Warriors still around by the 21st century; he assumed they "all" left Mars after its atmosphere thinned "centuries" before the 21st century, while Lord Zzaal said the Ice Warriors had discovered "primitive, early life" developing on Earth before his people went into suspended animation. (AUDIO: Red Dawn) The Eighth Doctor dated this time as "many millions of years" before the 23rd century. (AUDIO: Deimos)
After the fall
Following the destruction of Mars' atmosphere, the Ice Warriors fled to Deimos, one of the planet's moons, where they constructed catacombs and placed themselves in suspended animation in the hope of one day either reclaiming Mars or conquering Earth. A human-made exhibit on Deimos dramatising the lead up to Izdaal's walk into the dawn mentioned that Earth was unsuitable to be conquered and inhabited "at this point in history" and that the Ice Warriors had nowhere to evacuate to. It said that Ice Warriors would one day awaken from the tombs to become "rightful" rulers of the Sol system. (AUDIO: Deimos) Lord Zzaal, whom had placed himself in suspended animation around the same time as those on Deimos, also told the Fifth Doctor that at that point the Earth's environment was unsuitable for them at that point. According to Lord Zzaal, even without the threat of the dawn, the low temperature and loss of water would mean an Ice Warrior could only survive for a few days. (AUDIO: Red Dawn)
As Mars died, one million Martians remained trapped in suspended animation on board the generation ship that had become the moon Phobos. (PROSE: Crimson Dawn) Similar installations existed in the asteroid belt in the Sol system. (AUDIO: Deimos)
At some point after Izdaal met the red dawn, the tracer, Zara, asked Isskar, now an elderly Ice Lord, to come to Safeplace so she could assemble the rest of the Key to Time and perhaps restore Mars. Isskar and a group of his warriors left in a ship, putting themselves in suspended animation on a spaceship commandeered by Isskar. (AUDIO: The Judgement of Isskar)
Centuries before 1997, Martian scientists concluded that the possibility of oxygen-breathing lifeforms was a complete absurdity. There were many attempts by the Martians to revitalise their world but they lacked the resources to accomplish it. They tried to grow plants in the barren soil of their planet but these were always rotten and dying. (PROSE: The Dying Days)
17th century
In 1609, the Ice Warriors participated in the Armageddon Convention, which convened in Laputa, a floating island in the sky near Venice. (PROSE: The Empire of Glass)
20th century
In 1903, after receiving a wealth of information from the future, Grigori Rasputin saw the Ice Warriors. (AUDIO: The Wanderer)
In 1983, a lone Ice Warrior by the name of Grand Marshal Skaldak, who had been frozen in ice for over 5000 years, was brought aboard the Soviet submarine, the Firebird. Piotr decided to thaw the ice before they reached Moscow, and Skaldak was revived. After revealing himself, Skaldak was attacked by the crew and imprisoned. He used his armour to send a distress beacon. Managing to escape by leaving his suit, Skaldak noticed that his distress call hadn't been answered. Believing his race to be dead, Skaldak attempted to use the sub's nuclear arsenal to attack the humans on Earth, allowing the two superpowers to strike back in mutually assured destruction. The Eleventh Doctor and Clara Oswald attempted to talk him into showing mercy. Before he made a decision, Skaldak was rescued by his people. After being brought onto their ship, Skaldak remotely deactivated the launch procedure. (TV: Cold War)
By 1997, Mars was in its dying days and its people were racked by sterility and disease. The Argyre clan of Ice Warriors tried to invade Earth, nominally taking over the United Kingdom with human collaborators to form a mutually beneficial relationship, but actually intending a mass terraforming ("ares-forming") of the planet. This was thwarted by the Eighth Doctor and the clan was eradicated. (PROSE: The Dying Days)
- Xznaal, the Ice Lord in charge of the Argye clan, showed familiarity with Gallifreyans and showed respect to the Doctor suggesting that they had either encountered the Time Lords or were aware of their existence.
21st century
In the early 21st century, a team from the Argosy funded by Leo Webster intended to take an Ice Warrior for Paul Webster to create a human clone army augmented by Ice Warrior biology and technology. The Argosy team and the Fifth Doctor and Peri arrived inside Izdaal's tomb, where his guardians awoke from suspended animation. Paul tried kidnapping Sub Commander Sstast in the Argosy, but the ship was shot down.
Paul then held the Doctor and his "cousin", the human-Ice Warrior hybrid, Tanya Webster, as hostages, attempting to escape in the Ice Warriors' rocket. In exchange for the survival of the tomb, Lord Zzaal swapped places with the Doctor. As dawn broke, Zzaal was killed by the ultraviolet rays from the "Red Dawn". With Zzaal no longer in mortal danger, Ssast fired a sonic charge at Paul, killing him. Tanya stayed behind, becoming an ambassador for Earth when communication between Earth and Mars opened. (AUDIO: Red Dawn)
In 2008, an invasion was attempted in Sydney, Australia but was thwarted by UNIT. (COMIC: The Age of Ice)
In the year 2012, an expedition under Lord Barset went to Antarctica to follow an earlier expedition by his grandfather in 1929. His ancestor's mission was a complete failure, with only a single survivor who informed others that the expedition had fallen prey to intelligent reptile men with superior technology. Seeking to uncover this advanced weaponry for himself, Barset accidentally freed the imprisoned Arakssor and his fellow murderers from the ice. The Seventh Doctor activated Geldar's distress call and boosted it to contact a Martian warship from the other side of the galaxy. The warship bombarded the prison from orbit, killing the Ice Warriors inside. (AUDIO: Frozen Time)
Another invasion and terraforming was attempted in the mid-21st century, when the Ice Warriors, led by Slaar, invaded the central T-Mat base on the Moon which regulated global T-Mat operations. He attempted to use a fungus, which would turn the Earth into a more hospitable planet for them. The Second Doctor and his companions stopped him. (TV: The Seeds of Death)
According to Harold, who had watched a documentary about the Ice Warriors on the History Channel, the Ice Warriors were "supposed to have been wiped out" following the T-Mat incident. In the 23rd century, the Ice Warrior expert, Professor Schooner, declared the Ice Warriors "extinct" for "centuries", while Gregson Grenville had learnt in school that "[t]hey were all melted when the invasion fleet spiralled into the Sun". According to Grenville, nobody knew of any Ice Warriors existing after this period until the attack on Deimos Moonbase in the 23rd century.
Human tourists to the catacombs of Deimos in the 23rd century, such as Margaret, considered the moon the "final resting place" of the Ice Warriors and she and Harold expressed shock that "real" Ice Warriors could ever exist. One of the Ice Warriors that awoke from the tombs on Deimos considered him and eight others the last of their race. The Eighth Doctor corrected him, mentioning the tombs in the asteroid belt containing Ice Warriors yet to have been awakened. (AUDIO: Deimos)
Another account stated that in 2086, invasion was attempted yet again, leading to the Thousand Day War. By 2088, the humans had won. (PROSE: GodEngine, The Dying Days) In 2097, the female Pope made a papal visit to Mars in order to anoint the first Martian bishops. This was done to improve relations between Martians and the humans. The Daleks made an assassination attempt. (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles)
22nd century
According to one account, by the early 22nd century, the Interstitial Mass Transit System had been established, linking the planetary bodies of the Sol system in a way that allowed humanity to treat Mars as a colony world, marginalising the few remaining survivors of the war (PROSE: Transit, Fear Itself) and, through the 22nd century, marginalised the Ice Warriors on their own home planet. Later, the Ice Warriors became allies of the humans. The Ice Warriors colonised a new planet and named it New Mars or Neo Ares. (PROSE: Legacy, The Medusa Effect)
However, according to the Eighth Doctor, the Ice Warriors would not establish a new homeworld until the Ice Warriors in the tombs in the asteroid belt awoke "a few centuries" from the 23rd century. (AUDIO: Deimos) The Monk showed Tamsin Drew the Ice Warriors having forcibly taken over the planet Halcyon circa the 33rd century. (AUDIO: The Resurrection of Mars)
The Eighth Doctor mentioned that colonies of humans existed on Mars, numbering 300,000 in the 23rd century according to Temperance Finch, although no Ice Warriors were known to live there. (AUDIO: Deimos) The Doctor said to the Monk that without the Monk's involvement in awakening them, "there shouldn't even be Ice Warriors on Deimos at this period of history". According to this account, without the Monk's involvement, even the Ice Warriors on Deimos wouldn't have awakened until "a few centuries" afterwards. (AUDIO: The Resurrection of Mars)
According to one account, during the 22nd century, Ice Warriors came into conflict with the Selachian Empire when a colony refused to sell weapons to the Selachians. The Ockorans used their sun-stoker on these colonists to kill them. (PROSE: The Final Sanction)
23rd century
According to one account, in the 23rd century, a group of nine Ice Warriors led by Lord Slaadek — noted by one of their kind as "the last of our race", though as the Eighth Doctor pointed out to him, "there [were] some more of you frozen out in the asteroid belt" — (AUDIO: Deimos) were awakened prematurely by the Monk from their tombs on Deimos in an attempt to change history; the Monk planned for the Ice Warriors to alter the atmosphere of Mars with Deimos Moonbase's atmospheric re-ioniser to revitalise their own home so that they would wipe out 300,000 human colonists, rather than 20 billion Halcyon on the planet Halcyon a thousand years later. (AUDIO: The Resurrection of Mars)
These Ice Warriors commandeered Tourist Shuttle Number 2 from their tombs to take over Deimos Moonbase. The 600 visitors and staff inside the moonbase were squeezed into a passenger rocket to evacuate. Tamsin Drew and Gregson Grenville had placed a bomb inside and planned to activate the bomb as they headed back to the rocket, while the Doctor and Professor Schooner sabotaged the re-ioniser. Professor Schooner was killed while buying time for the Doctor. The Doctor and Tamsin leapt aboard the rocket, but Gregson couldn't reach the rocket in time. The rocket took off, killing Gregson and two Ice Warriors. The Doctor considered activating the bomb remotely himself, but backtracked when the rocket received a "text message" from Lucie Miller, (AUDIO: Deimos) who had been placed there by the Monk as part of his plans.
When the rocket returned to Deimos thanks to a gravity eddy, Lord Slaadek demanded that they have the Doctor, so that the re-ioniser could be repaired. When the re-ioniser began its process, the Doctor, unable to reverse the effects, brought it "to a very sudden halt with a very loud bang" by reducing a critical feedback in the ionisation beam. At the last minute, the Doctor also made the process alter Mars into an Earth-like atmosphere rather than that of the Mars of long before. With only five minutes to escape to the catacombs, the surviving Ice Warriors failed to make it when the feedback ignited the atmosphere of the moonbase. (AUDIO: The Resurrection of Mars)
24th century
Circa the 24th century, a group of Ice Warriors on the planet Magnus got caught up with the deals of the Mentor, Sil, who said he would lower the temperature of Magnus to make the world a more comfortable environment for Martians. The Sixth Doctor and Peri put an end to this plan. (PROSE: Mission to Magnus / AUDIO: Mission to Magnus, PROSE: Legacy)
25th century
In the 25th century, the Fourth Doctor combatted the plots of the Ares Corporation and awakened the sleeping Martians in the artificial moon of Phobos; the event became known as Resurrection Day. (PROSE: Crimson Dawn)
26th century
By the 26th century, the Ice Warriors were an isolated species. They had left Mars and, according to one account, were isolated on New Mars. (PROSE: Legacy) However, the Monk showed Tamsin Drew that they didn't even find a new world to live on until the discovery of Halcyon around the 33rd century. (AUDIO: The Resurrection of Mars)
During this century, an Ice Warrior, Haama, accompanied Abslom Daak and his crew in the Kill-Wagon. (COMIC: Star Tigers, Nemesis of the Daleks, Emperor of the Daleks) In the late 26th century, a Martian called Hass became the gardener at the Braxiatel Collection. (PROSE: ...Be Forgot)
27th century
Around the early 27th century, two delegates of New Mars were in peace talks with Queen Bastrovan. After leaving this conference, Karter and his partner set off explosives, inadvertently doing severe damage to the space liner the Empress instead of wiping out one floor as planned. The Ice Warrior delegate, Azznesh Azzar, thinking the explosion was the Queen's doing, set a collision course for Ronos Minor that would kill the remaining dignitaries on board and provoke a war against the Queen. Karter, though having escaped was discovered to be involved, preventing the hostilities, while the fake distress call Azzar sent out attracted the attention of Ice Warriors. They brought the survivors of the explosion to safety. (AUDIO: The Dance of the Dead)
31st century
In the mid-31st century, the Eighth Doctor and Stacy accidentally interrupted Izaxyrl's rite of ascension. During the distraction, Izaxyrl was kidnapped by Lord Artix in order to stop the ceremony. If Izaxyrl was not an adult, he could not inherit the title of High Lord of Balazarus Mons from his father Uzoxx, which would mean Artix would take over. Though Izaxyrl was eventually rescued, the Doctor and Izaxyrl returned to the fortress of Darsus Mons to try to rescue Stacy and Ssard and were captured. Despite this, Artix was eventually defeated and Izaxyrl became an adult. (COMIC: Descendance, Ascendance)
33rd century
According to one account, Ice Warriors from the asteroid belt had awoken from their stasis some centuries after the 23rd century, and around the 33rd century, as the Monk had shown Tamsin, had found Halcyon, a planet "ideal for their purposes". The Ice Warriors destroyed all life on the planet before settling on it as their new home. The Eighth Doctor told the Monk the destruction of Halcyon was "a part of the Web of Time". (AUDIO: The Resurrection of Mars)
40th century
By the late 40th century, the Ice Warriors (still in the Galactic Federation) had, for the most part, renounced their war-like ways. (TV: The Curse of Peladon, The Monster of Peladon) At some point after their entry into the Federation, the Ice Warriors served as monitors and were dispatched to Draconia to oversee the crisis developing among the Draconians after the ascendance of Empress Adjit Kwan. It was led by Commander Ixzyptir, who was empowered to declare martial law in case the civil unrest became too great, and was charged with guarding the Adjudicators that were to negotiate a peaceful settlement. The Tenth Doctor arrived and was mistaken for the Adjudicator. The Ice Warriors were responsible for the protection of Donna Noble. (COMIC: Cold Blooded War!)
After Peladon had entered the Federation, the Martians had entered a civil war on New Mars and Grand Marshall Raxlyr had placed the planet under martial law, cutting off contact with the outside world. The Martian royal family had been executed, apart from Princess Lixgaar of New Mars, and she, along with other refugees had been granted refuge by King Peladon of Peladon. Most of the Martians were kept in refugee camps on Peladon, while Princess Lixgaar was held in the chamber of the Prisoner of Peladon until Lord Izlyr could safely take her to Federation headquarters on Io. (AUDIO: The Prisoner of Peladon)
41st century
In 4010, a group of Martians were on Cressida to watch a rare chemical reaction in the atmosphere of Uranus. (PROSE: Uranus)
Circa 4035, the Martians were again members of the Federation. By this point, Martian royalty were referred to princes and princesses of Mars, rather than New Mars. (AUDIO: The Bride of Peladon)
51sh century
Circa 5000, during an Ice Age on Earth, Varga and his crew were finally revived and decided to take over first Brittanicus Base and then the world. (TV: The Ice Warriors)
Undated events
- The Tenth Doctor believed that the Ice Warriors may have frozen their water to prevent the Flood from escaping and killing all Ice Warriors on Mars. (TV: The Waters of Mars)
- This likely occurred thousands of years before 2059.
- On the planet Yama-10, the Ice Warriors were mining the hostile world of Trisilicate when their position was attacked by the Cybermen, who wanted that world as part of their empire. Taking the battle to the polar ice caps which were a more suitable condition for the Martians to fight in, the battle raged between the two sides. The ice melted, drowning the Cybermen and entombing the Ice Warriors in ice. (COMIC: Deathworld)
- A group of Ice Warriors led by Arryx sabotaged the weather controls of luxury planet A-Lux, turning it into a snowy and barren land. They were defeated by the Seventh Doctor and Frobisher. (COMIC: A Cold Day in Hell!)
- The Ice Warriors were part of the Supremo's alliance in the war against Morbius. (PROSE: Warmonger)
- A group of Ice Warriors were put in the Doctor's TARDIS by the Master to fight against the Graak. (GAME: Destiny of the Doctors)
- Whilst at a party, the Eighth Doctor saw an Ice Lord. (COMIC: The Glorious Dead)
- The Ice Warriors had a presence on Coralee. (PROSE: Storm Harvest)
- At some point, an Ice Warrior named Araxus as well as another Ice Warrior were held as slaves aboard a slaver ship circling the Frenko Bazaar. They were freed by the Second Doctor and led an uprising against their masters. When the slavers departed, the slaves aboard used the ship to return everyone home that wanted to be, and everyone else to become a new crew that would "find [their] dessstiny among the ssstars". (COMIC: Prisoners of Time)
- An Ice Warrior was one of the judges of the 309th Intergalactic Song Contest. (AUDIO: Bang-Bang-A-Boom!)
- 16,000 years after the fall of Mars, the Ice Lord Isskar's ship, guided and used by Zara, arrived on Safeplace to find a segment to the Key to Time, and in doing so began fighting the Valdigians at a castle there. After Isskar was freed from being trapped in the segment, he arrested the Fifth Doctor and Amy to take them to a tribunal. Isskar confiscated Amy's segments and sent the TARDIS overboard while the ship was in hyperspace in the event of the Doctor and Amy's escape. Zara, being unable to detect Amy's segments, travelled back in time with the time ring, having "wrecked the controls" of the ship. The ship was on a collision course with the red giant, Leboon. The Ice Warriors escaped in escape pods, but the Doctor and Amy were forced to stay behind. (AUDIO: The Judgement of Isskar)
- Ice Warriors were present during the Siege of Trenzalore. They either retreated or died in the fighting which took place after the Daleks broke through the Papal Mainframe's force field and plunged Trenzalore into war. (TV: The Time of the Doctor)
Alternate timeline
In an alternate timeline created by the Black Guardian where the First Doctor never left Gallifrey, and became Lord President, the Ice Warriors were one of many aliens that invaded Earth, and fought over the planet with other races against the Silurians and the Sea Devils. This timeline was destroyed when the Seventh Doctor retrieved the Key to Time. (COMIC: Time & Time Again)
In an alternate version of the 27th century created by Doggles' history machine, Hass' brother, Sset, was in negotiations with Irving Braxiatel over the possession of certain Martian artefacts, including carved obsidian from Phobos. Sset eventually sent a ship full of clades, a type of autonomous battlefield weapon, to the Braxiatel Collection killing many civilians. (PROSE: Siege Mentality)
References
- The Ice Warriors were on the Eleventh Doctor's top five enemies list which he mentioned to the Fourth Doctor and Romana II while they were making up "top five" lists. (AUDIO: Babblesphere)
Other Information
When cyborg hacker Psi was attempting to protect Clara Oswald from the Teller, he ensured that it would focus on his guilt by uploading the memories of some of the worst criminals in history, one of them being an Ice Warrior. (TV: Time Heist)
Behind the scenes
- Strictly speaking, according to their debut story, the Ice Warriors never had that name until Walters gave it to them and Victoria Waterfield carried Walters' description back to the Doctor. Subsequent stories would forget this, and have the Ice Warriors use this name to refer to themselves. The writers for Big Finish generally remembered that the Martians of the distant past, such as Lord Zzaal in AUDIO: Red Dawn, had no reason to recognise the epithet "Ice Warrior" upon hearing others using it. However, the issue was addressed in the New Series Adventure novel The Silent Stars Go By when the Eleventh Doctor suggests they at one point forgot their species' name and simply adopted the name given by Victoria. Another explanation was given in AUDIO: Lords of the Red Planet, an audio based on an unproduced television script by Brian Hayles written long before the New Series Adventures and the monthly Big Finish plays like Red Dawn, where the Second Doctor unintentionally suggests the name to the Gandorans, who created the Ice Warriors.
- TV: The Ice Warriors implies that Mars can no longer support life, which is also implied by TV: Cold War and backed up by most of the Ice Warriors' appearances in Big Finish Doctor Who. Most Ice Warriors in stories unconnected to the Galactic Federation originate from a Mars of long before the 20th century. The storyline of TV: The Seeds of Death made it clear that Mars could still support life in the Doctor Who universe even up until approximately the 21st century, when that story took place. AUDIO: Red Dawn, also set in the 21st century — about thirty years after the Mars Probe incident — contradicts this, saying that the Ice Warriors could only survive a few days on the surface with the extremely low temperature and lack of water.
- In a deleted scene from TV: The Waters of Mars, the Tenth Doctor theorised that the Ice Warriors found the Flood on Mars and froze it, then evacuated the planet, only for the humans to discover it later.
- The distinctive qualities of the Ice Warriors came out of the design process. The original conception of the Ice Warriors described them as partially machine-like and from the planet Mars. Rather than try to make up a race of cyborgs which would appear too similar to the Cybermen, designs for the character emphasised the more organic, reptilian qualities of the Ice Warriors.
- According to non-narrative information in DWBIT 49, when a passing Dalek fleet attacked Mars on its way to Earth, the Ice Warriors helped Mars colonists create a virus which ate away at Dalek cable insulation and which led to the Dalek defeat.
