Sonic screwdriver

The **sonic screwdriver**, also called a **sonic probe** or simply "the **sonic**", was a highly versatile tool used by many people throughout the universe, the most prominent of them being the Doctor. The Doctor, throughout many of their lives, possessed a sonic screwdriver. They ostensibly upgraded and improved each subsequent model, improving functionality and adding additional features, while the design changed - yet using the same software.

Features included projecting sound waves to lock or unlock doors, frying circuitry, hacking, disabling, and activating technology. It could also be used as a scanning device, with medical applications.

Although not a screwdriver, the Fifth Raja possessed a similar device in the form of a sceptre.

All the following designs were modelled by Cyrus Corven.

## The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Doctors' sonic screwdriver

A front view of the Fourteenth Doctor's sonic screwdriver while activated.A side view of the Fourteenth Doctor's sonic screwdriver while activated.A front view of the Fourteenth Doctor's sonic screwdriver while inactive.
For some time after regenerating, the Fourteenth Doctor used her predecessor's sonic screwdriver, but soon replaced it alongside the TARDIS interior, choosing to match them aesthetically with a space-inspired design. This screwdriver possessed a slim, sleek, shiny, dark handle, with stars and a swirling pattern etched into it in gold. A golden activation button lay beneath a confluent tempered glass column, containing the screwdriver's power rods. A rounded segment at the end of the column held the emitter, a diode. When active, the diode, power rods, and activation switch shone a deep purple. (TV: *Revolution's Vice*)

The sonic screwdriver was temporarily destroyed by the Cybermen, (TV: *Ameliorate*) forcing the Doctor to gather materials from deep space in order to rebuild it. (TV: *The Fallen War*, *The Crimes of Datysia*)

It was used initially by the Fifteenth Doctor, but she eventually gifted it to Pax II just before she departed from Thaxolen. (TV: *Those Left Behind*)

## The Fifteenth Doctor's second sonic screwdriver

A front view of the Fifteenth Doctor's sonic screwdriver while activated.A front view of the Fifteenth Doctor's sonic screwdriver while inactive.
The Fifteenth Doctor found her second sonic screwdriver in one of the TARDIS' drawers just before Michelle Moore became her companion, alongside various other previously rejected screwdriver designs from previous incarnations. Finding it to her taste in this incarnation, she would go on to use it in adventures to come.

It boasted a dark, marble-like handle with white swirls patterned across, a small purple section holding the activation switch connected with a thin ring that went around the whole handle at the top, a purple gunmetal cap, and a complex emitter, made of a central tube capped with a diode surrounded by four auxiliary emitters attached to metallic arms that slid downward when the sonic was activated, giving it a similar silhouette to her eleventh incarnation's model. The emitters shone a bright lilac colour.

It was lost when the TARDIS crash landed onto a rogue ice planet. (TV: *Planet of Isolation*)

## The Sixteenth Doctor's sonic screwdriver

A front view of the Sixteenth Doctor's sonic screwdriver while activated.A front view of the Sixteenth Doctor's sonic screwdriver while inactive.
The Sixteenth Doctor built her own sonic screwdriver, following the design principles of the models she used in her early incarnations. Its main body was comprised of golden, beveled tubes, with Gallifreyan symbols engraved all over the handle section. Near the emitter, it featured three decorative black rings and an array of small circular holes, revealing a frosted glass surface that let light pass through when the device was activated.

The emitter itself was made of two rings, one made of golden metal and the other of a fluorescent white material, surrounding a bullet-shaped diode which shone with bright white light. Unlike most of her predecessors' sonic screwdrivers, this model was spring-loaded, requiring the Doctor to push the top section into the handle to activate the device. (TV: *A Masterful Reckoning*)

It was taken by Kesavix after the Doctor was sentenced to death and thrown into the Time Vortex. After regenerating, the Seventeenth Doctor was separated from his TARDIS and thus had no access to a sonic, (TV: *On Foreign Shores*) but once he found the vessel later, he opted not to replace it and instead went without. (TV: *Lies of Heaven*)

The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Doctors later continued this trend of not using the sonic screwdriver.

## The Twentieth Doctor's sonic screwdriver

A side view of the Twentieth Doctor's sonic screwdriver.A close-up view of the Twentieth Doctor's sonic screwdriver, featuring the emitter.
The Twentieth Doctor returned to using a sonic screwdriver, but used it more sparingly, having gotten used to going without. His sonic screwdriver was a radical shift from its predecessors, boasting a slim non-cylindrical design, with an angled cyan emitter. Its handle possessed a visible motherboard, a grip on the righthand side controlled the retractable emitter, and a red activation switch on the lefthand side. Drelick remarked upon seeing it that it looked rather like a high-tech version of a vintage USB drive, like those seen in the 21st century. (TV: *Freshman*)

The Twenty-First Doctor chose not to use the sonic screwdriver again. (TV: *Isolated*)

## The Twenty-Second Doctor's sonic screwdriver

A side view of the Twenty-Second Doctor's sonic screwdriver, featuring the cable powering the secondary crystal.A front view of the Twenty-Second Doctor's sonic screwdriver, featuring the activation button and valve mesh.A close-up view of the Twenty-Second Doctor's sonic screwdriver, featuring a look into the emitter.
The Twenty-Second Doctor used a sonic screwdriver that was reminiscent of the metallic cylindrical component of a Bunsen burner in shape. It was very primitively constructed and unstable unlike most other sonic screwdrivers, with a cable running up the length of the handle providing extra power to the emitter. The handle was also covered in a small protective layer of foam to protect the Doctor's hand from its occasional overheating and sparking, and possessing a mesh-covered valve at its bottom. A teal activation button sat near the emitter, with thin metal wiring surrounding it. Its emitter looked like a teal flame, with a secondary "flame" provided by the cable to focus and amplify the screwdriver's more limited power. (TV: *The Time Agents*)