Skovox Blitzer
A Skovox Blitzer was an alien robot built for war, said to be among the most dangerous weapons ever created. A single Blitzer carried sufficient explosive power to destroy an entire planet.
Characteristics[[edit] | [edit source]]
The robot's physical form was composed of a humanoid torso with stocky arms on top of a larger box-like structure, with four crustacean-like legs in the corners that propelled the robot when on the ground to roughly the same speed as a running human. According to the Twelfth Doctor, the Blitzer could fly, as well as travel across space, hinting that it had homed in on the target area on Earth without external help. This would also account for its strange, floating method of movement when on the ground, with the legs being responsible for propulsion without being slowed down by supporting the body's weight. Its weapons were built into the arms, with the right arm possessing a triple-barrelled rapid-fire weapon which could shoot three simultaneous green energy bolts that caused its target to rapidly burn and disintegrate, and the left arm housing a single-barrelled energy weapon that fired white energy bolts that could explosively vaporise anything within its range.
Unusually, Skovox Blitzers were designed to vocally state aloud whatever they were mentally processing, from environmental information that they had scanned, to whatever instruction they were currently following. They were also programmed to think that the answer for almost every problem was to destroy the source/obstruction and apparently had been designed to not differentiate between enemy combatants and unarmed civilians, despite any claims from the target of being friendly and harmless. If ordered to shut down without the necessary final input code, they would self-destruct and destroy the planet that they were on. (TV: The Caretaker [+]Loading...["The Caretaker (TV story)"])
History[[edit] | [edit source]]
The Skovox Blitzers were originally created by the Skovox, a highly advanced and belligerent species, for use in their interplanetary war against their arch rivals, the Helicon, a highly advanced and easily annoyed species. The two species preferred to conduct their battles by proxy, using robots on innocent planets located between their two star systems, which would end up as radioactive wastelands or previously uncharted asteroid fields. The intention was for the Blitzers to deliver a decisive victory. They proved successful against the Helicon, homing in on their tell-tale particles, until the Helicon found a way to convince the Blitzers that they were their superior officers and that they should attack the Skovox, homing in on their tell-tale Artron emissions. Unfortunately, they neglected to use the word "instead" in their instruction, and the Blitzers turned their fire on both the Skovox and the Helicon.
During the resulting chaos, all the Skovox who knew the shutdown codes for the Blitzers were lost, and whenever the Skovox or the Helicon tried to command the Blitzers to shut down they self-destructed with catastrophic consequences, as each carried enough explosive to destroy a planet. The final result of the conflict was a large empty patch in the galaxy where their two solar systems used to be. Most of the Blitzers were destroyed but a few survived, awaiting new orders whilst drifting through space. They continued to scan for Helicon and Artron emissions in the hope of finding new targets. The Skovox-Helicon war was covered by historians who had been allowed access to the "Monster Vaults" of the databanks in the Doctor's TARDIS, whom reported the belief that there remained over 800 Blitzers still fighting the conflict. (PROSE: The Monster Vault [+]Loading...["The Monster Vault (novel)"])
A Skovox Blitzer came to Earth in the early 21st century, attracted to the area around Coal Hill School by the high number of artron energy emissions. Whilst there, it killed Matthew, a local police officer. The Twelfth Doctor detected the Blitzer and trapped it in Coal Hill's school hall and projected it into the Time Vortex using chronodyne generators. However, Danny Pink had inadvertently interfered with the generators and the Blitzer was not projected as far into the future as the Doctor had planned, reappearing just two days later rather than a billion years. Before it reappeared, the Doctor developed a device that would make his orders sound as though they were coming from one of the robot's superiors. With the assistance of Clara Oswald and Danny, he again trapped it, and ordered it to deactivate. He then left it to self-destruct in space near the Olveron Cluster, telling it to "enjoy [its] war". (TV: The Caretaker [+]Loading...["The Caretaker (TV story)"])
References[[edit] | [edit source]]
After the Twelfth Doctor's mind was connected to a mind scythe, the "holiday snaps" the Doctor showed Kygon Brox included a Skovox Blitzer. (COMIC: The Instruments of War [+]Loading...["The Instruments of War (comic story)"])
