Nimon

The Nimon were a species of parasites on a galactic scale, using up civilizations and moving on.

Characteristics

Appearance

The Nimon were large black-skinned humanoids resembling the mythical minotaurs. Their horns can shoot out blasts of energy. Nimon drained energy direct from their victims, leaving them as husks. The Nimon have mighty, rumbling echoing voices.

Life cycle

The Nimon could use an artificial black hole as a gateways from planet to planet. This technology was effective but not energy efficient. Due to their high energy needs, the Nimon undertook migrations they called the Great Journey of Life. Usually, one Nimon was sent to a planet, representing themselves as a god with advanced technology where it would construct a maze-like Power Complex, a building-sized labyrinth of circuitry designed to generate a new black hole which it then used to transport more Nimon to the planet, using capsules. The Nimon would then drain that world dry and move on.

Technology

Nimon were capable of using a psioninc mind beam to transfer their power and were able to use gravitic distortions, gravitational lensing and phasing energy through an event horizon. The effect was the gift of immortality onto another being. (BFA: Seasons of Fear)

History

The Nimon were one of many races that participated in the Millennial War against the Mad Mind of Bophemeral where they collaborated with the Osirians in dropping quantum collapsers on the insane computer intelligence. (PDA: The Quantum Archangel)

When the Doctor and Romana stopped the Nimon they had used exhausted Crinoth and had moved on to Skonnos, home to the faded Skonnos Empire. The Nimon used the Skonnan Soldeed as their priest and demanded tribute of hymetusite crystals from the planet Aneth. (DW: The Horns of Nimon)

The Doctor later encountered the Nimon who were in contact with Sebastian Grayle influencing him to aid their invasion of Earth. (BFA: Seasons of Fear)

Behind the Scenes

Anthony Read, the creator of the Nimons drew heavily from the ancient Greek myth of the Minotaurs when creating the Nimons. (Minotaur had appeared earlier in Doctor Who in The Mind Robber and The Time Monster.)
When making The Horns of Nimon production team had conceived the Nimon's large "heads" as masks that would open up, revealing their desiccated actual faces beneath. However, the budget could not stretch that far and so they never attempted to show that the Nimons had a hidden true form.
In the the podcast for The Next Doctor, Russell T Davies hinted that the Nimon would return for the 2009 Specials. However, he was probably referring to the parasitic nature of the Swarm from Planet of the Dead. But, it is still possible they will return as Russell mentioned them when talking about the final 2 specials