Sontaran The Sontarans were a race of belligerent and militaristic clone s from the planet Sontar , created by the Kaveetch . They waged an eternal war throughout Mutter ' s Spiral against the Rutan Host , though they made no effort to change this nor did they want peace . Biology . The Sontarans were humanoid s with large , bulbous heads and short stocky bodies ; humans who met them , such as Sarah Jane Smith , Clyde Langer and Bea Nelson - Stanley , often compared them to " huge potatoes with ray guns " . They had grey - brown skin and deep set features . Sontarans generally had three digits on each hand ( two finger s and a thumb ) , ( TV : " The Time Warrior " , " et al " ) though some had five fingers on each hand . ( TV : " The Sontaran Experiment " ) Some Sontarans also had vestigial hair , generally in the form of beards , which grew white with age . ( PROSE : " Shakedown " ) Sontaran blood was green . ( TV : " The Two Doctors " , " The Last Sontaran " ) The Sontarans reproduced by cloning , meaning each Sontaran was nearly identical to each other . There were some variations over time , such as the number of fingers , ( TV : " The Sontaran Experiment " ) height , ( TV : " The Two Doctors " ) or skin colour . ( PROSE : " Shakedown " ) Group Marshal Stike was noticeably taller than his Androgum associates Shockeye and Chessene . ( TV : " The Two Doctors " ) Sontar As a nurse , at least one Sontaran had been gene - spliced for nursing purposes , such as the ability to produce breast milk . ( TV : " A Good Man Goes to War " ) They used mass cloning techniques that allowed their hatcheries to produce up to a million Sontarans in four minutes . ( PROSE : " Lords of the Storm " ) Occasionally , genetic defects would crop up and the afflicted Sontarans would perform menial labour . ( COMIC : " The Betrothal of Sontar " ) Due to the high gravity of the moon of Sontar that they were first created on , the Sontarans had great strength and resilience in lower gravity environments like Earth or Gallifrey . ( TV : " The Two Doctors " , AUDIO : " The First Sontarans " ) However , Sontaran muscle s were designed for load bearing rather than leverage , ( TV : " The Time Warrior " ) which could lead to unwieldiness . ( TV : " The Sontaran Experiment " ) The Sontaran cardiovascular system was 210 % more efficient than the human normal . ( AUDIO : " The Shadow Play " ) They were vulnerable to coronic acid . ( TV : " The Two Doctors " ) If severely wounded , a Sontaran would enter an anabolic coma . They would usually die , but sometimes they would later wake . ( PROSE : " Shakedown " ) Sontarans fed on pure energy . ( TV : " The Sontaran Experiment " ) They absorbed energy via the probic vent on the back of their necks . This vent was also their crucial weakness , as any sudden blow to the vent would stun them . The penetration of a sharp object into the vent would kill them . ( TV : " The Time Warrior " , " The Invasion of Time " , et al . ) Tampering with the energy source could also lead to a reversal effect that could destroy a Sontaran from the inside out . ( TV : " The Sontaran Experiment " ) Sontarans could live into their eighties , but this was uncommon due to their military culture . ( AUDIO : " Old Soldiers " ) In an alternate universe , all Sontarans appeared , roughly , the same age , with the exception of the older General Sontar . ( PROSE : " The Infinity Doctors " ) Members of the Great Houses regarded the Sontarans as " goblin s " ; Larissa remembered the Sontaran invasion of Gallifrey as a " goblin infestation " , ( PROSE : " Newtons Sleep " ) and in " " the Seventy - Ninth Sontaran Assault Corps was represented by a " goblin - hoarde " . ( PROSE : " The Book of the War " , AUDIO : " The Eleven Day Empire " ) Society . The Sontarans were a martial species , obsessed with war . They hated the idea of a great war going on without them . ( TV : " The Time Warrior " , " The Sontaran Stratagem " ) Sontaran civilisation relied on war , and the continuing war effort of the Sontaran Empire relied upon its civilisation . ( AUDIO : " Old Soldiers " ) Sontarans trained for war in the Sontaran Greater Military Academy . ( PROSE : " Devil in the Smoke " ) The body of power in the empire was the Grand Strategic Council . ( AUDIO : " Conduct Unbecoming " ) The highest honour for a Sontaran was to serve in the Imperial Sontaran Fleet and to be disallowed soldiering was the most dishonourable fate for a Sontaran . ( COMIC : " The Betrothal of Sontar " ) Taking care of the sick and wounded was a humiliating concept . ( TV : " A Good Man Goes to War " ) Fighting for other species was an equally dishonourable fate . ( TV : " Enemy of the Bane " ) Sontarans did not fear death and they would rather be court - martialled than show pain . They considered it honourable to face battle " open skinned " , without a helmet on . ( TV : " The Sontaran Stratagem " / " The Poison Sky " ) Though they would ally with other species ( PROSE : " Shakedown " , TV : " The Pandorica Opens " ) , they felt no need to keep them . ( PROSE : " Shakedown " ) Sontarans would only ally themselves with other species ' take prisoners ' or allow enemies to live , if it served the greater good of the empire . ( AUDIO : " Old Soldiers " ) Sontarans who possessed five digits on their hands were generally placed as intelligence operatives . However , these agents had a tendency to be paranoid . ( PROSE : " Lords of the Storm " ) The Sontarans marched to a tune titled the Sontaran Anthem . ( PROSE : " The Eight Doctors " ) Despite being a clone race , the Sontarans still retained the concept of betrothal , which was roughly analogous to ending hostilities by killing your enemy . ( COMIC : " The Betrothal of Sontar " ) Within their society , there was a rigid clan structure , with clans having different genetic markers . ( PROSE : " Lords of the Storm " ) The clans vied for power . Some had great influence , such as the Gunnar Clan . ( PROSE : " Shakedown " ) Sontarans were known for Quicksand Wrestling . ( TV : " Enemy of the Bane " ) Sontarans used a counting system . ( TV : " The Last Sontaran " ) Sontarans generally held a chauvinistic attitude towards females , considering them unfit for warfare . They would sometimes insult their enemies by comparing them to women . ( TV : " The Sontaran Stratagem " ) They also considered their reproductive systems inferior . ( TV : " The Time Warrior " ) Some Sontarans , however , had trouble figuring out which gender humans were . ( TV : " A Good Man Goes to War " , " The Snowmen " ) They referred to Earth - born children as " half forms " . ( TV : " The Last Sontaran " , " Enemy of the Bane " ) Some Sontarans bore eponyms , relating to past victories and events that had occurred in their lives . Sontarans would often introduce themselves by their full name ' rank ' and / or title . The Tenth Doctor pointed out that a title such as Staal ' s ( " General Staal the Undefeated " ) would no longer be accurate if he " did " get defeated , joking , that , that would make him " General Staal the Not - Quite - So - Undefeated - But - Never - Mind . " ( TV : " The Sontaran Stratagem " / " The Poison Sky " , " The Last Sontaran " ) If a Sontaran opposed the decision of their commanding officer , they could duel to the death to decide which would be the leader . ( PROSE : " The Taking of Chelsea 426 " ) Sontarans considered informing a person that they looked forward to someday killing them on the battlefield a compliment . ( TV : " A Good Man Goes to War " ) Due to their dedication to warfare and short lifespan , Strax considered a twelve - year life to be a long one amongst his species . ( TV : " A Good Man Goes to War " ) Incinerators were kept on Sontaran ships to dispose of dead Sontaran soldiers . ( AUDIO : " The Sontaran Ordeal " ) The Eighth Doctor believed that the word " overkill " was made for the Sontarans . ( AUDIO : " The Sontaran Ordeal " ) Ranks . The ranks of individual Sontarans were generally not prominently displayed on the uniform . The Marshal above Styre sported two large spiky disks on the front of his collar . ( TV : " The Sontaran Experiment " ) Commander Stor wore a larger collar than his troops and had a white , three - pointed , crown imprinted on his helmet . ( TV : " The Invasion of Time " ) Group Marshal Stike had white braiding on his shoulders , akin to epaulettes . ( TV : " The Two Doctors " ) In the early 21st century , badges of rank were more clearly visible and consisted of various symbols set into the right - hand side of the front of the collar . General Staal wore five diamonds in a crown - shaped pattern . Commander Skorr sported three diamonds in a similar pattern . The lowest rank of this badge design was Lieutenant , displayed by a single diamond in the middle of the badge , shown on Lieutenant Skree , an operations officer . ( TV : " The Sontaran Stratagem " / " The Poison Sky " ) In the 24th century , Commander Steg wore a gold helmet while his troops wore red ones . ( HOMEVID : " " ) Forces . The Sontaran military was divided into several different units , regiments , and fleets . These included the Fifth Sontaran Army Space Fleet , ( TV : " The Time Warrior " ) the G3 Military Assessment Survey , ( TV : " The Sontaran Experiment " ) the Sontaran Special Space Service , ( TV : " The Invasion of Time " ) the Eighth Battle Fleet , ( COMIC : " The Instruments of War " ) the Ninth Sontaran Battle Group , ( TV : " The Two Doctors " ) the Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet , ( TV : " The Sontaran Stratagem " / " The Poison Sky " ) the Twelfth Sontaran Battle Fleet , ( PROSE : " The Sontaran Games " ) the Special Assault Squad attached to other units - such as the Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet , ( TV : " The Last Sontaran " ) the Koda , ( PROSE : " Lords of the Storm " ) the First Assault Battalion ( HOMEVID : " Mindgame " ) , the Fourth Sontaran Intelligence Division ( PROSE : " The Taking of Chelsea 426 " ) , and , in one universe , the Three Millionth Fleet . ( PROSE : " The Infinity Doctors " ) Culture . Early Sontarans believed in the Furies . ( AUDIO : " The Furies " ) A school of Sontaran painters specialised in apocalyptic landscapes . They were executed for artistic tendencies . ( COMIC : " The Weeping Angels of Mons " ) 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 . Weaponry . The Sontarans could use and make a wide variety of hand - held weapons , though they usually used the rheon carbine , a thin , metallic weapon , which was designed to optimally fit the Sontaran hand . The weapons were used for energy projection and hypnotism . ( TV : " The Time Warrior " , PROSE : " Shakedown " , " Lords of the Storm " ) The Sontarans also utilised laser rifle weapons during the assault of 2009 , which fired bright beams of red light that could kill a human without any exterior damage . ( TV : " The Sontaran Stratagem " / " The Poison Sky " ) They also had the Stenk 11 pistol . ( PROSE : " The Undertaker ' s Gift " ) They also used melee weapons such as sword s ( COMIC : " The Betrothal of Sontar " ) , machete s ( TV : " The Sontaran Experiment " ) , spear s ( COMIC : " The Betrothal of Sontar " ) , and staff s . ( PROSE : " The Taking of Chelsea 426 " ) They also made use of fragmentation grenades , which could destroy everything in a certain area . ( PROSE : " Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons " , " Legacy " ) They bought weapons designed by the Vess , who also supplied the Cybermen and Dalek s . ( AUDIO : " The Light at the End " ) The Sontarans utilised battle computer s . ( AUDIO : " The Sontaran Ordeal " ) In an alternate universe , the Sontarans began plans to develop a device capable of snuffing out entire star s in response to the development by the Rutans to create a planet - killing weapon that was able to destroy a world by converting it from matter to anti - matter . ( PROSE : " The Infinity Doctors " ) Transportation . The Sontarans used spherical vessels , which were covered in square plates . They were generally only large enough for one Sontaran . ( TV : " The Time Warrior " , " et al " ) Some had cloaking capabilities . ( TV : " The Last Sontaran " ) The Sontaran motherships were similar in shape to the scoutship , but had four claw like appendages coming out of the top and bottom . The scout ships were attached to the mothership and could be released when needed . ( TV : " The Sontaran Stratagem " / " The Poison Sky " ) War - Wheel s were combat vessels shaped roughly like a bow tie , with two rotating ' wheels ' either side of a central spherical core . They were capable of planetary landings . ( PROSE : " Shakedown " , COMIC : " Unnatural Born Killers " ) Assault ships were also used for planetary invasions . Sontaran fleets had a typical arrow formation , with ships composing the head and the shaft . ( TV : " The Invasion of Time " ) When on a planet , the Sontarans would travel by the means of aircraft . These aircraft looked like the bottom half of a Sontaran ship , with seats and controls on the top half . ( COMIC : " The Betrothal of Sontar " ) In the 13th century , ( TV : " The Sontaran Experiment " ) Sontarans utilised an osmic projector for time travel . ( TV : " The Time Warrior " ) Thousands of years earlier , their time travel technology , which was developed by the Kaveetch , was only capable of sending individuals into the future . ( AUDIO : " The First Sontarans " ) In the 20th century , they made other attempts to obtain more effective time travel technology such as the Kartz - Reimer module developed by Kartz and Reimer . ( TV : " The Two Doctors " ) Sontarans adapted teleportation technology using generators situated at the area of materialisation . ( TV : " The Sontaran Stratagem " / " The Poison Sky " ) Armour . Sontarans wore distinctive battle armour , which resembled 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 . ( TV : " The Time Warrior " ) During a period in the early 17th and early 21st century Sontarans had blue , less flexible , armour in a similar design ( TV : " The Sontaran Stratagem " / " The Poison Sky " , GAME : " The Gunpowder Plot " ) although those Sontarans may have been solely ship crews , since crew armour was blue . Sontarans of the medical and environmental divisions wore green armour , ( PROSE : " Lords of the Storm " ) though in 4037 , the nurse Strax wore an outfit similar to that of the blue 17th / 21st century armour . ( TV : " A Good Man Goes to War " ) Other technology . Sontarans used two methods of controlling other individuals . They could take over their minds through hypnosis , ( TV : " The Time Warrior " , " The Sontaran Stratagem " ) or control them with devices attached to the neck . ( TV : " The Last Sontaran " ) They also used psy - snare s for the same purpose . ( COMIC : " Black Sun Rising " ) The Sontarans were capable of creating around a million clones every four minutes , which allowed them to sustain massive casualties . These clones were fed using the probic vent , which was the Sontaran ' s only weak spot . These clones were grown in vats and were nourished by Caesofine gas . ( TV : " The Poison Sky " ) The Sontarans could heal their wounds with a device called a tissue rectifier , which was a stubby , tubular device . ( PROSE : " Blind Terror " ) Styre used a miniature camera and a force field while studying humans . ( TV : " The Sontaran Experiment " ) During the mission to make Earth a breeding planet , the Sontarans made a Cordolaine field around themselves that caused metallic copper to expand ; when the copper was in the jacket of a bullet , it became jammed in the gun ' s barrel , rendering it useless . ( TV : " The Sontaran Stratagem " / " The Poison Sky " ) History . Early history . The Kaveetch were the original natives of Sontar , and also considered themselves " Sontarans " ( just like Humans could be called " Earthlings " ) . They appeared more like human s . ( AUDIO : " The First Sontarans " ) The Sontaran colony that became the home of the Pureblood Sontaran s was settled at some point before the Rutan - Sontaran War . ( COMIC : " Pureblood " ) After a war with the Rutan Host had reached a stalemate , Meredith Roath proposed the creation of a clone army , namely the Sontaran clones . Within weeks , the clones were not only fighting on the front lines but had turned the tide of the war firmly in the Kaveetch ' s favour . ( AUDIO : " The First Sontarans " ) However , the Sontarans turned on their creators due to their supposedly inferior nature and unique knowledge of Sontaran physiology . ( AUDIO : " The First Sontarans " , COMIC : " Pureblood " ) Even the existence of the Kaveetch was eventually erased from the Sontarans ' official history . ( AUDIO : " The First Sontarans " ) According to the Sontarans themselves , before encountering the Rutans , they were split into clans , which would fight amongst themselves . The survivors of these civil wars joined forces and set their aggression on alien s instead . ( PROSE : " Shakedown " ) Rutan - Sontaran War . Distant past . The cloned Sontarans were engaged in a war with the Rutan Host . During the Millennium War , though , Sontarans and Rutans briefly joined forces . ( PROSE : " The Quantum Archangel " ) During the dying days of the Fifty - first Star Fall Campaign , the Sontarans suffered heavy losses against the Rutans . Sontaran scientists created the world engine weapon Warsong to change the course of the war . The Sontarans were unable to deploy the weapon , and the " brave warrior " Surnat Gaq escaped the Rutans , and while mortally wounded , he took the Warsong to primitive Earth , where it lay dormant and undetected . ( COMIC : " The Instruments of War " ) In Earth ' s prehistory , a Sontaran went to Egypt , where he was worshipped as a god . Eventually , the human s learned of his plan to destroy Earth for the war , and they buried him alive inside a pyramid . ( COMIC : " The Gods Walk Among Us " ) 2nd century . In 102 , the Sontarans were among the races who joined the Alliance . They came to Stonehenge and helped imprison the Eleventh Doctor in the Pandorica in order to save the universe . ( TV : " The Pandorica Opens " ) 13th century . In the 13th century , ( TV : " The Sontaran Experiment " ) Linx , a scout , was forced to perform an emergency landing in England after being attacked by a squadron of Rutan fighters . He claimed Earth and " its moons and satellites " 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 . He would then hypnotise them in order to make them work on his ship . He was killed when his repaired ship began taking off . ( TV : " The Time Warrior " ) 16th century . Later , in the year 1522 AD , a Sontaran scoutship crash landed on Earth in China . As a result of the incident , their hyperspace transmitter was damaged and they required a replacement crystal in order to summon reinforcements as well as to take over the planet . There , they formed a partnership with the Abbot Hsiang and Yueh who knew them as the " bronze men " where they used their hypnotic technology to test enhance his fighting abilities . The Emperor of China learnt of the enhanced fighting skills of the monks and came for a demonstration . This was all part of a plan by the Sontarans to kill the Chinese Emperor as he possessed a quartz crystal sufficient to power the hyperspace transmitter and thus placed a hypnotic suggestion designed to turn the monks against the Emperor in order to kill him . However , the Fourth Doctor intervened and had K9 recorded the trigger words and broke the spell but not before Chang went into a berserker attack that killed the Sontarans as a result of him hearing the command phrase once . ( COMIC : " Dragon ' s Claw " ) 17th century . In 1605 , a group of Sontarans came searching for a crashed Rutan ship buried under the Houses of Parliament that contained two doomsday weapons capable of wiping out an entire species . Both the Sontarans and the Rutans raced to retrieve them but the Eleventh Doctor reached them first , modified them and gave one to each party and told them they could use it on the other but faced a risk of killing their own species instead . ( GAME : " The Gunpowder Plot " ) In 1609 , along with the Rutans , the Sontarans participated in 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 . ( PROSE : " The Empire of Glass " ) 19th century . After being resurrected in the aftermath of the Battle of Demons Run , Commander Strax worked with Madame Vastra and Jenny Flint on Paternoster Row in 1888 London . ( WC : " " , TV : " The Snowmen " ) In 1892 , after the Eleventh Doctor was brought out of " retirement " , Strax defended Captain Latimer ' s house from snowmen controlled by the Great Intelligence . He tried and failed to save the life of Clara Oswin Oswald after she fell off the Doctor ' s cloud . Said failure was shown to affect him somewhat . ( TV : " The Snowmen " ) In 1893 , Strax worked with the Doctor , the Paternoster Gang and Clara Oswald to defeat Mr Sweet and Winifred Gillyflower ' s plans to wipe out humanity except for their chosen few . Along the way he befriended a young urchin named Thomas Thomas and saved his friends from Mrs Gillyflower by shooting at her , causing her to fall to her death . ( TV : " The Crimson Horror " ) At some point after this , Strax , along with Vastra , Jenny and Clara , assisted the Twelfth Doctor in foiling the plans of the Half - Face Man , although at one point when defeat appeared inevitable , Strax briefly considered suicide . ( TV : " Deep Breath " ) . At some point during his time in Victorian England , Strax became separated from Vastra and Jenny and assisted investigators Henry Gordon Jago and George Litefoot on a case . ( AUDIO : " The Haunting " ) 20th century . Sontaran soldier Brak visited Earth in 1916 and witnessed the Battle of the Somme . He was captured by British soldiers and imprisoned for eighty years , during which he created powerful weapons for humanity in the hope that they would tear each other apart . ( AUDIO : " Old Soldiers " ) In the 20th century , it was believed that a Sontaran scout ship crashed in Tunguska . Some of this wreckage was obtained by UNIT and kept in the Vault . ( AUDIO : " Tales from the Vault " ) In 1941 , a small retinue of the Eighth Battle Fleet arrived in the Sahara Desert after they had discovered the world engine the Warsong had begun to activate after being lost for millennia . They hid among the Tuareg tribe so as not to alert the Rutans to their presence . After the Rutan Heinz Bruckner had claimed the world engine with a device which controlled the Warsong ' s movements . The Twelfth Doctor tricked Kygon Brox into believing he would seize the Warsong for the Sontarans . As a result , Kygon gave the Doctor an osmic projector to send the control device through time , stopping Bruckner ' s plans . However , instead of allowing the Sontarans to strike at the Rutans with the Warsong , the Doctor blew the weapon up with his sonic screwdriver . ( COMIC : " The Instruments of War " ) In 1945 , the Sontarans were one of 23 races that came to Dusseldorf in search of the persuasion machine . ( AUDIO : " Persuasion " ) At some point during the 20th century , Edgar Nelson - Stanley met with the Sontarans . He believed they were " the silliest race in the galaxy " . ( TV : " Eye of the Gorgon " ) In 1965 , three hundred Sontarans were killed by Captain Gol Kutha when he and his squad hijacked a Sontaran timeship . ( COMIC : " Hunters of the Burning Stone " ) In the 1980s , Group Marshal Stike claimed that the war with the Rutans was " on the contrary " to going badly . The Ninth Sontaran Battle Group attempted to gain unlimited access to time travel through Kartz and Reimer ' s experiments . This failed when Chessene betrayed Stike and Major Varl , and the Sixth Doctor sabotaged the Kartz - Reimer module . At the same point in time , the Sontarans were involved in a battle with the Rutans in the Madillon Cluster . ( TV : " The Two Doctors " ) 21st century . In 2009 , the Sontarans were losing the war against the Rutans . To counter this , the Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet ( led by General Staal ) made plans to convert Earth into a cloning world , and carried them out with the help of Luke Rattigan . ( TV : " The Poison Sky " ) The Sontarans used a form of hypnosis on the workers of the ATMOS factory , forcing them to start shipping out devices that contained gases poisonous to humans , contained inside plates attached to the Sat - nav s they sold . When the Tenth Doctor attempted to meddle , the Sontarans activated all the devices already deployed in cars , releasing the poison gas and choking people nearby . ( TV : " The Sontaran Stratagem " ) The gas was burnt away by the Doctor ' s use of an atmospheric converter and Rattigan , having been betrayed , sacrificed his life by using the converter to destroy the fleet . ( TV : " The Poison Sky " ) Following this attempt , Commander Kaagh was left as the last survivor of the Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet after he crashed to Earth . He used Professor Nicholas Skinner to bring satellite s crashing into Earth ' s nuclear power plant s . He wanted to take Sarah Jane Smith to Sontar for the Doctor ' s crime and for her knowledge of the Sontarans . The plan was stopped when Chrissie Jackson disabled Kaagh with her high heeled shoe , but he came round and was forced back to Sontar in his pod . ( TV : " The Last Sontaran " ) Following this failure , Kaagh became a mercenary for the Bane . He met Mrs Wormwood while looking for the remains of Horath and they agreed to work together . After finding the mind of Horath , he followed Wormwood to Earth , where they took the Tunguska Scroll from Sarah Jane and kidnapped Luke Smith . The alliance started to break down when Mrs Wormwood sided with Luke over Kaagh , ending when she betrayed and disabled him . Seeing that he had lost , he dragged Wormwood into the wormhole containing Horath . ( TV : " Enemy of the Bane " ) In 2009 one Sontaran was captured by the Krulius and stored in a data - pod . The Krulius later used his digital bio - converter to upload the Sontan ' s bio data onto the internet . There it was found by Mr Smith , Rani Chandra and Clyde Langer who sent the Sontaran back to his home planet . ( COMIC : " Monster Hunt " ) Another Sontaran was kept at the Doloth Star Base . When the Judoon caught the Krulius all his captured aliens were set free . However the Krulius had managed to take clone cell samples of his former captured aliens with him , which allowed him to grew perfect copies of these aliens . ( COMIC : " Return of the Krulius " ) Circa 2010 , one Sontaran named Jask was on Earth and was chased by Martha Jones and Mickey Smith . He managed to get away and tried to kill them with a sniper rifle but was knocked out by the Tenth Doctor . ( TV : " The End of Time " ) In 2011 at least one Sontaran weapon was part of a shipment of weaponry stolen by a CIA Special Operations Division when it was removed from The Hub . ( PROSE : " The Men Who Sold the World " ) In the 2010s , a Sontaran was a resident of the hidden trap street in London which housed lost aliens on Earth under the protection of Mayor Me . As with the rest of the inhabitants it appeared cloaked in human form through use of the lurkworm s . ( TV : " Face the Raven " ) In the 21st century , two Sontarans were in Istanbul . The Ninth Doctor fought them in a sword fight , and had his life saved from one of them by " some sort of spy " called Sally Sparrow . ( PROSE : " What I Did on My Christmas Holidays by Sally Sparrow " ) 25th and 26th century . Around 2570 , the Sontarans were engaged in activities in the Magellanic Clouds . ( PROSE : " Love and War " ) At some point during the 26th century , the Sontarans sent in Commander Steg to conquer Jekkar in order to create a buffer around Sontar . Though he had no difficulty with the human s , the Jekkari , led by the Seventh Doctor , were able to fight back effectively . The surviving Sontarans destroyed their bases and abandoned the planet . ( PROSE : " Shakedown " ) Some time later , an expedition was made to go to Sentarion and take advantage of the wormhole connecting it and Ruta III to kill the Rutan Queen . Though the Sontarans tried to keep this information classified , a Rutan spy known as Karne was able to learn that the information had leaked out and tried to return to the Rutans . Commander Steg was sent in to redeem himself and kill Karne . He was able to track it to the space yacht " Tiger Moth " , where it had hidden in the ship . During the course of his investigations , his soldiers were whittled down by Karne and the human crew . Eventually , Karne was killed and all the Sontarans were believed to be killed . In reality , Karne was able to clone himself before his death and Steg was able to pull through . ( HOMEVID : " " , PROSE : " Shakedown " ) The second Karne was to able escape to Sentarion , followed by the Seventh Doctor , his companions and the survivors from the " Tiger Moth " . Commander Steg was able to follow them with a War - Wheel and forced the Doctor to open to wormhole to Ruta III . The War - Wheel was sent through , but the Doctor was able to reverse the polarity of the wormhole , meaning the War - Wheel would never get to Ruta III . When Steg tried to kill the Doctor in revenge , a fight began , leading to the death of Karne and the Sontaran forces . ( PROSE : " Shakedown " ) Also at some point during the 26th century , the Sontarans and Rutans took their war to the colony Chelsea 426 . The Fourth Sontaran Intelligence Division , led by General Kade , were given the mission of hunting down Rutans that were at the time taking over human bodies . The Tenth Doctor was present during the event and while he did not side with either waring party , he did stop the Rutans , after which the Sontarans left . However , there was evidence that the Sontaran Division ' s trouble with the Rutans was not fully over after their ship left the colony . ( PROSE : " The Taking of Chelsea 426 " ) During either the 25th or 26th century , the Rutans destroyed the Sontaran homeworld , Sontar , with photonic bomb s , though some escaped with the Sontaran racepool . At the same time , the Sontarans encountered the Pureblood Sontaran s . Due to the intervention of the Seventh Doctor , the cloned and pureblood Sontarans decided to pool their resources and Marshal Stave promised to remove the Sontarans ' memory of humans from the racepool . ( COMIC : " Pureblood " ) 31st century . A group of Sontarans landed on the planet ERM 4997 in the year 3076 where they encountered the Seventh Doctor and Melanie Bush . ( AUDIO : " Terror of the Sontarans " ) 41st century . In 4037 , eleven year old Commander Strax was demoted to Nurse for his failure , tending to the human s in the Battle of Zaruthstra . He was summoned by the Eleventh Doctor to Demons Run " circa " the 52nd century . ( TV : " A Good Man Goes to War " ) Circa 52nd century . " Circa " the 52nd century , Commander Strax died in the Battle of Demons Run at the hand of the Order of the Headless . ( TV : " A Good Man Goes to War " ) Madame Vastra and Jenny Flint brought him back to life . ( WC : " " ) 10th millennium . In the year 10 , 674 , the Sontaran Empire had been reduced to " radioactive remains " . ( PROSE : " The Crystal Bucephalus " ) Post - 11th millennium . Many thousands of years after the 20th century , at a time when the Earth had been abandoned for 10 , 000 years , the Sontarans were separated from the many human worlds like GalSec throughout Mutter ' s Spiral by a buffer zone . The Grand Strategic Council planned to invade the galaxy , but they had to abandon that plan when a scout , Field Major Styre , was killed while trying to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the humans . After this , the Fourth Doctor bluffed , telling the Sontarans that their battle plans had been captured , so they would have to call off their invasion . ( TV : " The Sontaran Experiment " ) Rassilon Era . In Gallifrey ' s past , the Sontarans joined Rassilon ' s Alliance of Races in the Great Inferno , a war with the Hyperions . ( COMIC : " Terrorformer " ) After the Hyperions were defeated , the Alliance then went on to purge the universe of other threats to universal harmony , one of those threats being Count D ' if of the Cybock Imperium . ( COMIC : " Gangland " ) The Sontarans were also part of the force which went to war against Morbius . ( PROSE : " Warmonger " ) The Sontarans , in concert with the Vardan s invaded Gallifrey , until beaten back by the Lord President the Fourth Doctor . ( TV : " The Invasion of Time " ) The Sontarans were part of the Supremo ' s alliance in the war against Morbius . ( PROSE : " Warmonger " ) The Sontarans were in negotiation with the Time Lord s and Order of the Black Sun for uranium on Desrault . When the Time Lords seemed to favour the Order of the Black Sun , the Sontaran ambassador Brilox used a psy - snare to turn one of the Special Executive escorts , Millenium into an assassin . After Millenium killed the Black Sun Elder , Brilox believed that with Gallifrey and the Black Sun at war and he ' d be able to secure the uranium rights for the Sontarans . However , when Wardog discovered the psy - snare on Millenium , he returned it to Brilox , wiping his mind . ( COMIC : " Black Sun Rising " ) A group of Sontarans were sent to an alternate Death Zone on Gallifrey and fought against the Fifth Doctor and a group of Dalek s . ( AUDIO : " The Five Companions " ) During the War , the Seventy - Ninth Sontaran Assault Corps invaded the Eleven - Day Empire on the behest of House s Tracolix and Lolita . ( AUDIO : " The Eleven Day Empire " ) However , Lolita later betrayed them , consuming them with the rest of the Empire . ( AUDIO : " The Shadow Play " ) Despite failed attempts to join in the conflict , ( AUDIO : " The Sontaran Ordeal " , " The Eternity Cage " ) the Sontarans were not " allowed " to fight in the Last Great Time War . General Staal understood it to be the greatest war of all time . ( TV : " The Sontaran Stratagem " ) After the Time War had ended the Sontarans fought other races for control over time . ( COMIC : " Weapons of Past Destruction " ) Alternate timelines . In an alternate timeline created by the Black Guardian , where the First Doctor never left Gallifrey and became Lord President , the Sontarans were one of many aliens that invaded Earth , and fought over the planet with other races against the Silurian s and the Sea Devil s . This timeline was negated when the Seventh Doctor retrieved the Key to Time . ( COMIC : " Time & Time Again " ) In an alternate timeline known as the " Cyberverse " which started with a change in history in 1927 , the Sontarans were one of several major powers in the universe who were conquered by the Cybermen by 1951 . ( WC : " Real Time " / AUDIO : " Real Time " ) In an alternate timeline where the Daleks were peaceful , the Sontarans remained a dangerous force in the universe in the universe alongside the Cybermen . They won the battle of Kharax Rift . ( PROSE : " The Ripple Effect " ) Following a psychic conference call with Madame Vastra , Jenny Flint , River Song and Clara Oswald , Strax was taken by the Whisper Men to an alternate Trenzalore where the Doctor died in battle . On Trenzalore , Strax was able to resurrect a dead Jenny but couldn ' t defeat the Whisper Men and was nearly killed . When the Great Intelligence altered the Doctor ' s timeline after accessing a wound in time in the Doctor ' s grave , Strax turned evil and Madame Vastra was forced to vaporise him . After Clara repaired the timeline , Strax was returned , back to his old self and apologised . ( TV : " The Name of the Doctor " ) Alternate universes . In an alternate universe where the Tenth Doctor died before the Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet ' s 2009 invasion of Earth , Torchwood Three took his place in destroying the flagship and stopping the spread of ATMOS ' gas . Gwen Cooper and Ianto Jones were killed saving Earth , and the immortal Jack Harkness was transferred to Sontar . ( TV : " Turn Left " ) In an alternate universe , the Warburg , led by General Sontar himself , the Warburg ' s supreme commander , and the Rutan Host convened on Gallifrey to meet face to face without violence . ( PROSE : " The Infinity Doctors " ) Other references . When the Skith Leader scanned the Tenth Doctor ' s mind , a Sontaran was among the alien creatures shown to him . ( COMIC : " The First " )