Raston Warrior Robot
Raston Warrior Robots were, according to the Third Doctor, the most perfect killing machines ever devised. They were silver androids and among the deadliest players of the Game of Rassilon in the Death Zone.
Abilities[[edit] | edit source]
The robots hunted by detecting movement and could move at fast speeds. They would move by jumping in the air and disappearing, then reappearing at their destination — the Third Doctor remarked they "moved like lightning", which might mean the robots did not actually teleport, but rather moved too fast to be seen. They had built-in weapons and could fire disks and arrows from their hands. They enjoyed toying with their prey. The robots were incredibly powerful and could kill a squad of Cybermen in less than a minute. Cyber-guns had little to no effect on them. (TV: The Five Doctors [+]Loading...["The Five Doctors (TV story)"])
They were capable of feeding on atomic radiation in the atmosphere. This meant their power never ran down. The loss of their heads did not diminish their efficiency, as they could just simply reattach them. They were also programmed to consider anyone except their makers as their enemy. If blown up, they could simply reform. (PROSE: World Game [+]Loading...["World Game (novel)"])
They attacked by locking onto the electrical activity of the target's brain (with two people possessing the same pattern causing the robot to jam, though it was only temporary, and if nudged physically from a dormant state, the robot would stand and be ready to kill again). The javelins they extruded were generated by the Raston warrior robot, whose entire weapon system was inbuilt. They could repair themselves from severe damage such as decapitation. Vrag, a Sontaran commander, already badly injured when he and the rest of his squad were brought by time scoop to the Eye of Orion by Ryoth in an attempt to kill the Doctor, managed to rip its head off.
The robot was able to repair itself and assumed guard of the Eye of Orion. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors [+]Loading...["The Eight Doctors (novel)"])
History[[edit] | edit source]
Past[[edit] | edit source]
A legend stated that the Raston Warrior Robots were the product of a race who were old when the Time Lords were young. This race was devoted to the creation of super weapons. It vanished without a trace. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors [+]Loading...["The Eight Doctors (novel)"]) However, one account states that this legend was actually a marketing ploy on the part of the Raston Hardware Company, who produced the warrior robots, along with cybernetic lap-dancers, in a warehouse on Tersurus Luna. The dancers were considerably less indestructible, particularly by the Krotons. (PROSE: Alien Bodies [+]Loading...["Alien Bodies (novel)"])
Alternatively, the work of natural historians who were allowed to study the monster information vaults of the Doctor's TARDIS held that the Raston Warrior Robots were created as Rassilon's Automatons. According to this account, they were created by Rassilon during the wars between the Great Vampires and ancient Time Lords. Tasked with fighting the vampires and mind-controlled Gallifreyans, they served as on-the-ground troops, while Bowships held a spacial role. As time passed on, their name was abbreviated, but their legacy as perfect killers remained. (PROSE: The Monster Vault [+]Loading...["The Monster Vault (novel)"])
A renegade Time Lord attempted to kill the Second Doctor and Serena by sending a Raston Warrior Robot to a warehouse they were visiting during a trip to France in 1805, but the Doctor was able to disable the robot with a torpedo from a prototype submarine long enough to convince the Countess — an ally of the renegade Time Lord in question — that it would be best to send the robot away before it slaughtered everyone in the area. (PROSE: World Game [+]Loading...["World Game (novel)"])
Active in the Death Zone[[edit] | edit source]
When the Death Zone was reactivated by Borusa and four of the Doctor's incarnations were trapped there, the Third Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith encountered a Raston Warrior Robot by a cave entrance and had to remain still to avoid detection. A patrol of Cybermen appeared and the robot attacked them instead, firing a barrage of arrows into their chest-plates and destroying them all, allowing the Doctor and Sarah to sneak past while it was occupied. (TV: The Five Doctors [+]Loading...["The Five Doctors (TV story)"])
Ryoth used the Time Scoop to send this same robot to the Eye of Orion, where it attacked the Fifth Doctor, Tegan Jovanka and Vislor Turlough. The Eighth Doctor joined them. By using the paradox known as Buridan's ass, the two Doctors approached it at the same pace so that both were equidistant from it. Unable to decide upon a target, as the Doctors' identical brain patterns meant that it was sensing the same target in two different places, the Raston Warrior Robot deactivated. It was reactivated when a Sontaran trooper kicked it. It killed the entire regiment but was itself defeated by Commander Vrag who, in his death throes, ripped its head off. However, it repaired itself after the Doctors had departed, and resumed guarding the area. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors [+]Loading...["The Eight Doctors (novel)"])
The Raston Warrior Robot was confronted by Leela in a clean up of the Death Zone. Regarding it as a "worthy opponent," Leela ultimately terminated the robot and mounted its head on the wall of her kitchen. (AUDIO: Time in Office [+]Loading...["Time in Office (audio story)"])
Later usage[[edit] | edit source]
The Tremas Master once used a Raston Warrior Robot to attack the Graak inside the Fourth Doctor's mind. (GAME: Destiny of the Doctors [+]Loading...["Destiny of the Doctors (video game)"])
UNIT once had to deal with a Raston Warrior Robot as part of a crisis known as "the Death of Yesterday". (PROSE: The King of Terror [+]Loading...["The King of Terror (novel)"])
During the War in Heaven, Raston Warrior Robots in the Death Zone were used for combat training. (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5 [+]Loading...["The Taking of Planet 5 (novel)"]) The armed forces of Gallifrey fielded squadrons of Raston Warrior Robots built from validium during the Last Great Time War. An entire squad had to be used to kill one of the Barber-Surgeon's creations after it reached Gallifrey. (AUDIO: The Mission [+]Loading...["The Mission (audio story)"])
Sebastiene once defeated a Raston Warrior Robot and added it to his collection of trophies. (PROSE: The Doctor Trap [+]Loading...["The Doctor Trap (novel)"])
Other references[[edit] | edit source]
In the video game Happy Deathday, played by Izzy Sinclair on the Time-Space Visualiser, the Sixth Doctor mistook the Wildean Wit Enforcer for a Raston Warrior Robot. The Wildean Wit Enforcer greatly resembled the Raston Warrior Robot in both appearance and offensive capabilities, but honed in on bad puns. (COMIC: Happy Deathday [+]Loading...["Happy Deathday (comic story)"])
Travelling through the caves of the Death Zone to save Borusa from the Dark Tower, the War Doctor and Cinder found various cave paintings which the Doctor speculated were depictions of himself throughout his lives, with one of the paintings depicting a figure "with bouffant white hair and a cape being chased by a silver robot". (PROSE: Engines of War [+]Loading...["Engines of War (novel)"])
Behind the scenes[[edit] | edit source]
- Autons were originally planned to appear in The Five Doctors instead of the Raston Warrior Robot but, for unknown reasons, did not.
- Russell T Davies in the DWM 393 expressed some interest in bringing back the Raston Warrior Robot in the new series of Doctor Who, citing The Five Doctors as the finest episode in the series. This did not occur during his first tenure.
- The Raston Warrior Robot was played by Keith Hodiak, who was an actor, but is more famous as a professional ballet dancer and instructor.
- A Raston Warrior Robot had a cameo in Robert Webb's Great Movie Mistakes III: Not in 3D. It appears in the background in one of the "mistakes" when the show makes up something that happened in the show itself. Here, it is referred to as a "Silver Warrior Robot".
- The Raston Warrior Robot costume is a re-paint of the Cyberman androids costume — a rather amusing turn of events, as the Cyberman androids were controlled by the Cybermen to do their bidding.
