Teselecta The Teselecta , designated Justice Department Vehicle Number 6018 , was a humanoid starship / time machine , similar to an android , staffed by a crew who had been miniaturised by a compression field . It was used to locate people deemed guilty of crimes who had escaped punishment . After finding them near the end of their respective timeline s to avoid changing history , the crew would administer their own punishment , usually in the form of some non - lethal , painful torture . Afterwards they could die in the manner recorded by history . History . The " Teselecta " had a crew of 421 people led by Captain Carter . They could change its appearance to that of any humanoid being . The " Teselecta " visited 1938 to punish Adolf Hitler at the same time that the Doctor ' s TARDIS crashed into Hitler ' s office due to Mels shooting the time rotor . The crash of the TARDIS knocked the " Teselecta " to the ground and inadvertently saved Hitler . The crew witnessed Mels ' regeneration into her River Song incarnation and recognised her as the worst war criminal in the universe for killing the Doctor in the future . Following River ' s departure from Hitler ' s office , the " Teselecta " followed , miniaturizing Amy Pond and Rory Williams and taking on the form of Amy . As Amy and Rory were innocent of any crime , they were given security privileges that protected them from the " Teselecta " antibodies . The " Teselecta " attempted to punish River before being interrupted by the Doctor . With the Doctor demanding information on his death and Amy a relative of River , Captain Carter granted Amy access to the " Teselecta ' s " records on the Doctor and the " Teselecta " informed the Doctor of the true nature of the Silence and about the Question . The " Teselecta " soon resumed torturing River , but Amy used the Doctor ' s sonic screwdriver to revoke the crew ' s security privileges . Under attack by the antibodies , the crew began shutting the robot down , including its weapons systems , but were forced to beam out to a ship in orbit when they couldn ' t shut down the " Teselecta " in time . After the Doctor died , Amy turned to the " Teselecta " which was still partially active . With Amy ' s privileges as a relative , she had the " Teselecta " shapeshift into River Song to show Melody that she and River were one and the same . Following his subsequent resurrection , the Doctor extracted data from the " Teselecta " databanks on his death at Lake Silencio . ( TV : " Let ' s Kill Hitler " ) The " Teselecta " was later recovered by its crew . As the Doctor ' s death approached , the Doctor tracked it down posing as Father Gideon Vandaleur , a deceased envoy for the Silence . The Doctor was able to disable the " Teselecta " once again and promised to fix it once he got what he wanted . Having realised that the " Teselecta " was investigating the Silence , the Doctor asked for information on the Silence ' s weak link . The " Teselecta " crew pointed the Doctor towards Gantok . As the Doctor prepared to go to his death , he visited the " Teselecta " to request that the crew deliver his invitations to his friends so that the Doctor wouldn ' t risk crossing his own timestream . Captain Carter promised to do so and insisted that no mater what the Doctor thought of them , the " Teselecta " and her crew were also champions of justice . After Carter asked if there was nothing more that they could do , the Doctor came up with the plan to have the " Teselecta " take on his form to fool everyone into thinking that he had died . After River Song stopped herself from killing the Doctor , it fractured a fixed point in time and created River Song ' s World . In the alternate timeline , the Doctor remained in control of the " Teselecta " , changing its outer form to make it appear as if he aged to avoid suspicion . Eventually , the Doctor married River Song and revealed to River in the process that both he and the TARDIS were safely inside the " Teselecta " . Knowing that she would not actually kill the Doctor , River and " the Doctor " kissed , restoring the universe . ( TV : " The Wedding of River Song " ) In the restored timeline , River blasted the " Teselecta " in the Doctor ' s form with her spacesuit ' s weapons pack , " killing " him . The " Teselecta " was set on a boat that was set ablaze and pushed out into Lake Silencio to burn . ( TV : " The Impossible Astronaut " , " The Wedding of River Song " ) The Doctor later revealed his deception with the " Teselecta " to Dorium Maldovar while River revealed the truth to Amy and Rory . According to the Doctor , he " barely got singed " when the " Teselecta " was set ablaze in the boat . As a result , all but River , Amy , Rory , Dorium and the " Teselecta " crew came to believe that the Doctor was dead , the true fixed point in time that was recorded in history . ( TV : " The Wedding of River Song " ) The Twelfth Doctor had the Teselecta transform into Clara Oswin Oswald as a way to celebrate one of Clara Oswald ' s birthdays . ( COMIC : " The Partying of the Ways " ) Features . Shapeshifting . The " Teselecta " could resemble anyone or anything whose likeness it scanned . During its time in Berlin , 1938 , it took on the forms of a cleaner , a Nazi official , a Nazi soldier ( with and without a motorbike ) , as well as Amy Pond and River Song . A member of the crew said it had once taken the form of Rasputin , but with green skin . ( TV : " Let ' s Kill Hitler " ) At some point the " Teselecta " took the form of Father Gideon Vandaleur , a deceased member of the Silence and , at his request on 22 April 2011 , the Eleventh Doctor . ( TV : " The Wedding of River Song " ) It was able to mimic regeneration at Lake Silencio . ( TV : " The Impossible Astronaut " ) The " Teselecta " had a lot of damage resistance , as the Doctor declared that he " barely got singed " when his " body " was being cremated at Lake Silencio . ( TV : " The Wedding of River Song " ) Though several of the " Teselecta ' s " features had been shut down before the crew were forced to abandon it , the shapeshifting aspect was still active and Amy was able to get it to take on the form of River Song by simply ordering the robot to access River ' s records and show River to her . ( TV : " Let ' s Kill Hitler " ) Miniaturisation ray . The " Teselecta " was equipped with a miniaturisation ray , which it used to shrink people and transport them into the " Teselecta " . Compression fields were used to keep people miniaturised . ( TV : " Let ' s Kill Hitler " ) Antibodies . The interiors of the " Teselecta " were defended by robotic organisms called " the antibodies " . Anyone without the proper privileges was killed , such as the Nazi Zimmerman in 1938 . If the crew ' s privileges were disabled , the antibodies would turn on the crew themselves and attack . The antibodies could presumably be disabled if the entire " Teselecta " was shut down as the crew attempted to shut the " Teselecta " down completely when such an event happened . However , they were not able to complete the task and were forced to call for outside teleportation to escape . The loss of privileges keeping the antibodies from attacking did not appear to effect a person ' s control of the " Teselecta ' s " other features . The crew were still able to access its systems to attempt to shut it down and Amy Pond retained the access Captain Carter granted her to the " Teselecta ' s " databanks . ( TV : " Let ' s Kill Hitler " ) Offensive and defensive features . The " Teselecta " was equipped with a non - lethal energy weapon designed to torture its victims . It otherwise had no known built - in weapons , although targets could be miniaturised and finished off by the antibodies . It was strong enough to withstand and take no significant damage from a collision from the Doctor ' s TARDIS at high speed . Handguns had very little effect on it . It had the ability to perform a " perfect faint " to plausibly avoid conversations with others . ( TV : " Let ' s Kill Hitler " ) It was also fireproof , or at least highly fire - resistant ; when the " Teselecta " posed as the Doctor and was burned after faking the Doctor ' s death , the Doctor , who was really inside , was unharmed , remarking after that the " Teselecta " was " barely singed " . ( TV : " The Wedding of River Song " ) Databanks . The " Teselecta " possessed extensive databanks on individuals , organizations and events throughout time and space . Relatives of those targeted had certain privileges that allowed them to be granted access to the databanks by the Captain , but use of the databanks by civilians was generally forbidden due to the danger of knowing too much about one ' s own future . In 1938 , Amy Pond was granted access to the " Teselecta " databanks as a relative of River Song who the " Teselecta " was targeting . Once Amy requested access to the records on the Doctor , the " Teselecta " provided the Doctor with the information he requested by verbalizing it in a robotic manner . These databanks had information on the Doctor ' s death at Lake Silencio and that it was a fixed point in time . The databanks were able to provide information on the Silence and the Question , though not what the Question actually was as the databanks lacked that information . The Doctor was later able to extract the biographical data the " Teselecta " had on the time , date and location of his death . After most of the " Teslecta ' s " systems were shut down , its databanks remained active and Amy , who retained her privileges as a relative , was able to access the records on River Song by simply speaking to the " Teselecta " . The " Teselecta " was then able to shapeshift into the form of River from its databanks at Amy ' s request . ( TV : " Let ' s Kill Hitler " )