The Sontarans (pronounced "Sohn-TAHR-ans") were a race of belligerent and militaristic clones who waged eternal war throughout Mutter's Spiral against the Rutan Host.
Biology
Appearance
The cloned Sontarans were humanoids with large, bulbous heads and stocky bodies. They had grey-brown skin and deep set features and all appeared roughly the same age, with the exception of General Sontar, who appeared older. (PDA: The Infinity Doctors)
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. Sontarans had green blood. (DW: The Two Doctors) The cloned Sontaran species consisted only of males. (DW: The Time Warrior)
- At least one Sontaran, Styre, had five digits (four fingers and a thumb) on each hand. This, along with facial variation seen in the species, indicates some degree of individuality even between clones. (DW: The Sontaran Experiment)
Weaknesses
Despite their strength, Sontaran muscles were designed for load bearing rather than leverage, which means they could be easily tied up. (DW: The Time Warrior)
One of the few ways to hurt or kill a Sontaran is via a small access port called a "probic vent" at the back of the neck. (DW: The Time Warrior) They are also weak to Coronic acid, which causes them to disintegrate and burn. (DW: The Two Doctors)
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. They 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) They can create around a million clones every four minutes, (source?) which allows them to sustain massive casualties. By the 12th century, Sontarans aleady used crude time-travel technology utilizing osmic projection, though nothing comparable to Time Lords. (DW: The Time Warrior) They made other attempts to obtain more effective time-travel technology, specifically those of the Time Lords. (DW: The Two Doctors) Styre also used a miniature camera and a force field while studying the Humans. (DW: The Sontaran Experiment)
Sontarans were typically seen wearing their distinctive battle armour, which resembles 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)
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)
The cloned Sontarans were engaged in a war with the Rutan Host. During the Millennium War, though, Sontarans and Rutans briefly joined force. (DW: The Quantum Archangel)
- Accounts differ as to the date at which the Rutan-Sontaran war started.
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 convend at 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)
In 2009, the Sontarans were apparently not fighting the Rutans, allowing the 10th Sontaran Battle Fleet (led by General Staal) to create plans for invasion of Earth and carry them out with the help of Luke Rattigan. The plans involved the generation of gases, poisonous to Humans, with the ATMOS devices. (DW: The Sontaran Strategem / The Poison Sky)
During either the 25th or 26th century, the Rutans destroyed the Sontaran homeworld, Sontara, with photonic bombs, though some escaped with the Sontaran racepool. At the same time, the Sontarans encountered the purebloods. 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)
Many thousands of years hence, after which time solar flares devastated Earth, the Sontarans believed that the Humans were a threat to their invasion plans. General Styre was sent to Earth to determine whether Humans still lived there and what threat they might pose, then sent out a distress beacon, in order to lure a Gal-Sec ship, in order to find out the physical strengths of the Humans. The Doctor stopped him and sent out a warning to Sontaran high command. (DW: The Sontaran Experiment)
