Characters / Doctor Who – Sontarans

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Sontarans (Second, Third, Fourth, Sixth, Tenth, Eleventh, Twelfth and Thirteenth Doctors)

Played by: Kevin Lindsay (1973–75), Stuart Fell and Derek Deadman (1978), Tim Raynham and Clinton Greyn (1985), Christopher Ryan (2008, 2010),^note Did not appear in "The End of Time" Dan Starkey (2008, 2010–2021)^note Did not appear in "The Pandorica Opens", Jonathan Watson (2021)

"Sontar HA! Sontar HA! Sontar HA!"

A race of the ultimate soldiers, the Sontarans are a clone race based on the planet Sontar that live for war. Humanoid in appearance, the Sontarans are short, stocky, and insanely strong. They also look somewhat like potatoes, for some reason. If they show up, the plot is usually somehow tied to their never ending war against the Rutans (a race of... intergalactic jellyfish).

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A-G

• Achilles' Heel: One of the most famous examples in the show is the Sontarans' probic vent, a small hole at the back of their necks which they use for feeding. When hit with any amount of force, it disables or even kills a Sontaran instantly. The Sontarans themselves do not consider it a weakness as it always forces them to face their opponents in battle. The Doctor actually loves the poetry of it, though he takes advantage of it at every opportunity and they never seem to learn.
• Affably Evil/Faux Affably Evil: For all their violent, militaristic ways, they are unfailingly well-mannered among themselves and to anyone they aren't currently engaged in killing.
  • General Staal compliments a UNIT Red Shirt's deductive skills, notes that he's pretty smart for a human, and apologizes for disabling his legs... since killing him honourably would be preferable, of course.
  • Strax from "A Good Man Goes to War" is much more affable than most of his species, partly because of his time spent as a medic having made him less single-minded and Axe-Crazy than the others.
    • Before Strax, IDW Comics had the Sontaran diplomat Stomm, who is one of the Doctor's allies during the story and is trying to attend peace talks (although it is pointed out the Sontarans want the Galaxy more peaceful so they can concentrate against the Rutans).
  • The Big Finish audio adventure "Heroes of Sontar" pushes them into Affably Evil territory. Yes, they fight wars, but they're of the opinion that the ends justify the means, and if one part of the world has to die in order for them to overcome another, it's just a sacrifice, it's not For the Evulz.
• Alien Blood: They have green blood.
• Always Second Best: The Daleks and Cybermen will always be the "Big Two" Doctor Who monsters, with the Sontarans often included somewhere behind them. Alas, they have never been able to catch up to their cyborg rivals in popularity, a fact that is occasionally lampshaded In-Universe. It was revealed in "The Sontaran Stratagem" that they were somehow disallowed from participating in the Last Great Time War. By the Revived era, the Weeping Angels are widely considered to have replaced them as the third most iconic monsters.
  • They get an unexpected victory over both the Cybermen and Daleks in Flux, as they lure them into the Flux wave after a false peace offering in order to claim the scant remains of the universe for themselves (though the Doctor ensures that they get hoist by their own petard as well).
• Anthropomorphic Zig-Zag: How ugly they are beneath their helmets varies from story to story (mostly depending on the available quality of makeup prosthetics). However, Series 4 of the revival introduced a new batch of Sontarans with much more humanoid facial features than before, allowing them to talk and emote like normal humans. They still have potato-heads, of course. Series 13 reverts them back to a more alien look.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Those in power? They fought their way up there.
• Attack Its Weak Point: The "probic vent" on the back of a Sontaran's neck is their only weakness. The Sontarans, characteristically, don't consider it a weakness since it forces them to always face their enemies.
• Author Appeal: Their entire creation was to appeal to author Robert Holmes and his distaste of militarism and colonialism. Also a bit of a Take That! against America at times, according to some people.
• Badass Boast: They're always boasting about their superior military prowess.
• Bald of Evil: In equal amounts. While most are as bald as an egg, some like General Staal manage a soul-patch of facial hair.
• Battle Cry: The aforementioned Sontar^note  their home planet HA!, often said increasingly louder the longer it goes on.
• Big Bad Ensemble: With Swarm in Series 13, as they take advantage of the Flux to destroy their enemies and take over the remains of the universe.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: They are a single-sex clone race consisting of short, stocky humanoids with green blood, three fingers, a small hole at the back of their necks for feeding and, most strikingly, half-spherical heads that resemble baked potatoes. In the Classic series, their skin was extremely craggy which made them look even stranger, though the Revived series (until Series 13) gave them more humanoid features.
• Blood Knight: Unlike the Daleks, who want to destroy everything out of a sense of racial supremacy, the Sontarans just love to fight and need no particular motivation beyond that. They actually wanted to fight in the Time War but were forbidden from doing so.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Their values system resembles that of Ancient Sparta. To wit: "I hope someday to meet you in the glory of battle, where I shall crush the life from your worthless human form" is apparently a high compliment.
• Boisterous Bruiser: The Sontarans love any fight or challenge. They can often be seen goading, laughing or offering sincere (if condescending) compliments to their adversaries in the midst of battle.
• Butt-Monkey: Downplayed. While they are often comic relief aliens and are made fun of, they are a capable and fearsome warrior race.
• Child Soldiers: Twelve is considered a ripe old age for Sontarans.
• Clone Army: It's the only way they can reproduce. The existence of different "batches" is used to explain why they're not 100% identical. Still, their differences are often so minute that humans have difficulty telling them apart (though the Sontarans say the same of humans).
• Combat Compliment: They never fail to show respect to opponents that show grit, resourcefulness and strategic intelligence.
• Combat Medic: Considered a Fate Worse than Death by them for obvious reasons. (That's not to say they can't be good at it, though.)
• Defeat Means Respect: Part of their Asskicking Leads to Leadership mindset: the Daleks or the Cybermen hate and fear the Doctor for repeatedly foiling their plans. The Sontarans (such as in "The Sontaran Stratagem") have actually come to respect him as one of the most brilliant military strategists in the universe — he doesn't even need to lead his own armies, he just stumbles into situations and comes up on-the-fly with brilliant plans to defeat them. Verges on Your Approval Fills Me with Shame, as the Doctor doesn't like to think of himself as a military leader.
• Depending on the Writer: Their TV appearances switch between the Sontaran being brutish and not very intelligent, but mostly a threat due to their brutality (The Time Warrior, The Sontaran Experiment, The Two Doctors, Strax) or a dangerous force capable of conquering the universe that even the Doctor fears (The Invasion of Time, The Sontaran Stratagem, Flux).
• Ditto Aliens: They are clones, after all.
  Rattigan: How do you tell each other apart?
  Stahl: We say the same of humans.
• The Empire: The Sontaran Empire wars with the Rutans and conquers other planets to improve its military stratagem.
• Establishing Character Moment: In "The Time Warrior", Lynx's first appearance has him greet the robber-baron Irongron from his spherical spaceship after effortlessly disarming him and then lay claim to the entire Earth, its moons and its satellites with a little white flag. It establishes the Sontarans as ruthless, Affably Evil colonialists, but also quite comical and arrogant.
• Forever War: Their never ending war with the Rutans. Last time we heard, it wasn't going in the Sontarans' favour, though the pendulum swings back and forth. The war goes on for at least 50,000 years but may continue even longer, since neither side has any interest in negotiating peace.
• G-Rated Drug: Sontarans do not process sugar like humans; it makes them drunk. At least one develops an addiction to chocolate.
• Genius Bruiser: They don't posses the raw intelligence or knowledge of the Daleks or Cybermen, but underestimate their cunning at your own peril — they're quite subtle and farsighted if need be.
• Great Offscreen War: Every one of their appearances sees them trying to gain intel or some strategic advantage for their Forever War against the Rutans, but the actual conflict has never been shown onscreen. In fact, we've never seen a Sontaran and a Rutan in the same story together, at least in the television series.

H-Z

• Heavy Worlder: Mentioned in "The Time Warrior" as an explanation for their strength. Although Sontarans "grew" in size over the course of the series, the new series took the trouble to restore them to their original short height.
  • The Sarah Jane Adventures spin off said that the planet Sontar has six times Earth's gravity and The First Sontarans audio story said the current Sontaran race was bred on the planet's moon which has even more gravity than Sontar.
• He-Man Woman Hater: In almost every story, they express gross sexist attitudes and consider "women-folk" to be inferior in every way. That's if they even acknowledge the existence of other genders besides males at all.
• Honour Before Reason:
  • As they don't see death on the battlefield as a particularly bad outcome, they aren't opposed to giving their enemies a sporting chance... usually.
  • They admire this trait in humans, going by Commander Skorr's final word ("Wonderful..."), after Colonel Mace challenges him in the corridor ("You will face me, sir!"), before shooting him.
• Hostile Terraforming: In "The Sontaran Stratagem"/"The Poison Sky", they plan to bathe the Earth in gas which is poisonous to native life but nutritious to themselves, so that they can use it to spawn more soldiers.
• Large Ham: They are well known for their bombastic speeches and "come at me, bro" attitude, which accounts for much of their popularity.
• Lawful Stupid, Chaotic Stupid: Played utterly straight in that if you challenge a Sontaran to a contest... any contest... they have to take that challenge. This weakness has actually made them a favourite of many authors.
  • Subverted in "The Two Doctors", when a Sontaran tells the Doctor that he doesn't need to accept his challenge to an honourable duel because the Doctor isn't a Sontaran, and is thus below him.
• Literal-Minded: Sontarans don't have the best grip on human colloquialisms. Staal was confused by Luke Rattigan saying something was cool, and Strax didn't understand the difference between bringing the morning newspaper up to Clara and throwing it at her head.
• Made of Iron: Sontarans are ungodly tough, making any attack against them ill-advised. Stike demonstrates this best with his ridiculous Rasputinian Death sequence in "The Two Doctors".
• The Magnificent: High-ranking Sontarans tend to carry such epithets, e.g. General Staal the Undefeated, Commander Skorr the Bloodbringer, etc.
• Martyrdom Culture: When a Sontaran is killed in battle, they're pretty happy. Commander Skorr's last word, upon being fatally shot in the front by Colonel Mace, is "Wonderful..."
• Mega City: The Betrothal Of Sontar comic shows that Sontar has continents covered by cities.
• Morality Pet: Defied. Never mistake a Sontaran showing you respect or fondness for them going soft, because they will remorselessly backstab their allies at the most opportune moment and laugh about it afterwards. Strax may be one of the only exceptional cases who values his friendships more than his loyalty to the Sontaran Empire.
• No Indoor Voice: As befitting for warriors, they can be LOUD! FOR THE GLORY OF SONTAR!
• One-Gender Race:
  • To the point that the first Sontaran we meet mistakes Sarah Jane for a member of a different species to male humans. They are a clone race with their progenitor being a very militaristic general with a huge ego.
  • Becomes something of a running gag with Strax, who similarly has trouble with the concept of two genders and refers to most women as "Boy", even after being repeatedly told otherwise.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: They are primarily comedy villains in the revival, yet they actually are one of the Big Bads of Series 13! During this season, they successfully outthink both the Daleks and the Cybermen, killing off the vast majority of both species as a result.
  • In the classic series as well. They piggyback on a previous invasion of Gallifrey which shut down the planet's defences in "The Invasion of Time", and actually have a hold on the planet for a while.
• One-Product Planet: In "The Sontaran Stratagem", they want to turn Earth into a breeding planet for cloning more soldiers.
• Our Clones Are Different: They're a clone race who reproduce through artificial cloning. Most accounts agree that Sontarans are essentially born from the cloning tanks as adults and that they mass clones in an industrialized manner. In-Universe, characters like Sarah Jane Smith and Luke Rattigan act like the Sontarans they've met are 100% identical, but out-of-universe, the Sontarans they're comparing appear to the audience to have marked differences between them, either due to costume changes over time or being played by different actors, or both. Although in the New Who, some Sontarans who never shared a scene together were completely identical to each-other, implying there were different genetic templates used for the clones and that ones from the same template were the identical ones.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Sontarans are tiny guys, barely poking past 5 feet on average. But being clones bred for combat, they pack a wallop in a small package.
  • Subverted with Commander Stor's Sontaran Special Space Service in "The Invasion of Time". Stor and his men are much taller and stockier than most others we have seen and they prove to be badass enough to briefly take over Gallifrey.
• Proud Warrior Race Guy: Their entire society is apparently focused on and driven by war. A declaration by a Sontaran that he will "crush the life from your worthless (human) form for the glory of the Sontaran Empire" is a compliment because it means the recipient is designated a Worthy Opponent.
• Retraux: In Flux, the Sontarans suddenly look and act much more like their lispy-voiced, black-armoured, rocky-skinned Classic series selves; in contrast to the blue armour and smoother skin sported by their Series 4 to 8 counterparts.
• Small Universe After All: Mr Smith in The Sarah Jane Adventures says the planet Sontar is in the Metasaran Galaxy.
• Sociopathic Soldier: They live for war. They die for war. God help you if you get in their way or fight back.
  • Subverted in "A Good Man Goes to War" by Strax the Combat Medic— the "sociopath" side of this trope is apparently not a fixed racial trait, but something resulting from a lack of perspective. Even so, Strax frequently wishes his patients a speedy recovery and expresses the desire to one day kill them for the glory of the Sontaran Empire.
    Strax: [cheerfully] I hope someday to meet you in the glory of battle, where I will crush the life from your worthless human form. Try and get some rest.
  • Stomm (see above) says farewell to the Doctor in a similar manner.
• Spheroid Dropship: Almost all their ships are plain spheres.
• Spikes of Villainy: Larger Sontaran ships are spheres with giant clawed shapes sticking out the top and bottom.
• Staff of Authority: The Sontaran baton is a device carried by certain high ranking officers of the Sontaran Empire, symbolizing rank as well as being a functional weapon.
• Strange Salute: Sontarans salute one another with an open hand held palm down against their chests.
• Super-Soldier: Their entire shtick. Bred for combat and war, and pretty good at it.
• Teleportation: Have this technology, but seem to need a teleporter on the planet's surface as well as on their ship.
• Theme Naming: Almost all Sontarans have short, monosyllabic names beginning with 'S'. Ironically, the first Sontaran we meet is called Jingo Linx, which doesn't fit the naming theme at all.
• Translator Microbes: Linx carried a translation device.
• Underestimating Badassery: Repeatedly, people underestimate the Sontarans for their unimpressive height or their fastidious demeanours, but they do so at their own peril. Silly as they can be, never forget that these guys are the finest warriors in the galaxy and they act as the Big Bad of an arc or two. On the same token, they tend to belittle humans (and Time Lords) and often pay the price for their arrogance.
• Violent Glaswegian: In "The Name of the Doctor", it is revealed that Strax, having discovered the concept of the "weekend off", has taken to traveling up to Glasgow on vacation, in order to get into bar fights with the only people in the universe able to equal the Sontarans for sheer bloody-minded aggression.
  • The Sontaran generals in Series 13 speak in Scottish accents.
• World's Best Warrior: The Sontarans are considered the finest warriors in the galaxy and their physical strength is considerable.
• Worthy Opponent: They deem the Doctor to be one of the greatest military adversaries. General Staal even laments that killing him via an ATMOS-controlled car would be an ignoble death and seems quite thrilled that he survived.
• Younger Than They Look: We eventually learn, 38 years after their initial appearance, that due to being war-happy clones, they consider 12 years to be a pretty good lifespan.

In Big Finish

Sontarans (First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, War and Ninth Doctors)

A warrior-race, in an almost eternal war with the Rutan Host, their warriors created via cloning in vast muster-parades.

• Blood Knight: The Sontarans are genuinely offended that they weren’t invited to join a conflict as ‘glorious’ as the Time War.
• Bothering by the Book: The Sontarans have two weaknesses— their probic vent at the back of their neck, and rigid adherence to military protocol. The Fifth Doctor uses the latter to talk his way out of execution.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Insulting the glory of the Sontaran Empire is punishable by death! Fortunately, a Stealth Insult tends to fly over their heads.
• Dream-Crushing Handicap: As the Dalek Time Controller tries telling them, they can't take part in the Last Great Time War, no matter how much they really want to. It's not a matter of will, just biology.
• Even Evil Has Standards: In "The Sontaran Ordeal", the former Sontaran commander Jask expresses disapproval of fellow Sontaran general Stenk, as Stenk abandoned his troops to die in battle to save his own life and attacked a planet with no strategic value just for his own glory; Sontarans have no problem with high casualties or attacking innocent worlds, but both should occur for a better reason than the glory of one man.
• Foregone Conclusion: Their efforts to get in on the Time War, as "The Sontaran Strategem" had already stated they weren't part of it.
• Large Ham: As in the series, Sontarans are very bombastic sorts.
• Mugging the Monster: Done successfully during "The Eternity Cage" they summon the Dalek Time Controller to a negotiation. It was planning on telling them they were being idiots and then exterminating them, but it turns out to be a Sontaran trap.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In "Terror of the Sontarans", the fact that Sontarans are basically having panic attacks is a clear sign that something is seriously wrong.
• Proud Warrior Race Guy: Their mentality. Sontarans live for war. Dying ignominiously (read: not in battle) is their greatest dishonour. In "The Kings of Sontar", Strang executes his entire regiment, which they hate.
• Small Name, Big Ego: As far as the Time Lords and the Daleks are concerned, the Sontarans are incapable of fighting on the level needed to fight in the Time War, but they are determined to join the conflict.
• Take a Third Option: Rather than join the Time Lords or the Daleks, the Sontarans try to open a third front.
• Took a Level in Badass: In “The Eternity Cage”, the Sontarans use the regeneration energy of a captured Time Lord to create temporal weapons, with the goal of opening a third front in the Time War.
• Turned Against Their Masters: "The First Sontarans" says they were created as Super Soldiers by a race called the Kaveetch, who they then wiped out.

Notable Individual Sontarans

Linx

Commander Jingo Linx (Third Doctor)

Played by: Kevin Lindsay (1973)

A commander in the Sontaran army who crash lands on Earth during The Middle Ages and makes a deal with a local robber baron to repair his ship.

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• Claiming Via Flag: The first thing Linx does after exiting his spaceship, to the bemusement of the watching locals, is to plant a flag, play the Sontaran national anthem, and claim Earth for the Sontaran Empire.
• Giving Radio to the Romans: Does this as a means of buying off Irongron. Although he has no intention of giving Irongron any more than the bare minimum to impress him in the form of crude black powder firearms.
• It Amused Me: The reason he gives primitives advanced weaponry so they can attack their rivals. The Doctor compares him to a little boy stirring up an ant hill to stop himself from getting bored.

Styre

Field Major Styre (Fourth Doctor)

Played by: Kevin Lindsay (1975)

A Sontaran dispatched to Earth to assess human physical capabilities and limitations in preparation for the Sontarans' invasion of the planet.

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• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Styre is baffled as to why Erak and Krans struggle to save Vural from being crushed by the gravity bar, repeatedly stressing that he's a traitor and doesn't deserve their mercy. Similarly, he's confused as to why Sarah makes a "disagreeable noise" (i.e. a bloodcurdling scream) upon seeing a man shot dead.
• Honour Before Reason: Styre can't refuse a duel with the Doctor, even though it allows Harry and Sarah Jane to release his prisoners.
• Laser-Guided Karma: For all of Styre's mocking of how fragile humans are (including dying from starvation/dehydration after only a few days), he doesn't have the endurance to handle a melee fight with the Doctor lasting a few minutes.
• Mind Rape: After he captures Sarah, Styre tortures her by making her hallucinate a snake wrapping around her arm and an indeterminable mass of sludge crawling up her legs.
• Torture Technician: His experiments on humans involve him torturing them in various ways to discover all their physical weaknesses.

Commander Stor

Commander Stor (Fourth Doctor)

Played by: Derek Deadman (1978)

An officer in the Sontaran Special Space Service and leader of the invasion force targeting Gallifrey.

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• Added Alliterative Appeal: His Sontaran Special Space Service.
• Big Bad: For "The Invasion of Time" and Season 15 as a whole, in which the Sontarans are the overarching villains.
• Elite Mooks: Stor's Special Space Service Sontarans are much bigger and more imposing than the typical Sontaran soldier.
• Law of Chromatic Superiority: Distinguished from his soldiers by the white marking on his helmet.
• The Man Behind the Man: Uses the Vardans as an invasion force for Gallifrey to cover the Sontarans' own conquest of the planet..

General Staal

General Staal the Undefeated (Tenth Doctor)

Played by: Christopher Ryan

A general in the Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet overseeing the Sontaran invasion of Earth in 2009.

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• Arc Villain: The main antagonist of the "The Sontaran Stratagem"/"The Poison Sky" two-parter.
• Chewing the Scenery: Sontarans are all incredibly bombastic by nature, but Staal really earns his General's stars and stripes with his fantastic delivery in his confrontations with the Doctor.
  Staal: Sontarans have no weakness.
  The Doctor: No, it's a good weakness!
  Rattigan: Aren't you meant to be clever? Only an idiot would provoke him!
  The Doctor: No, but the Sontarans are fed by a probic vent in the back of their neck. That's their weak spot. Which means, they always have to face their enemies in battle. Isn't that brilliant? They can never turn their backs.
  Staal: We stare....into the face of DEATH!
• A Good Way to Die: Is gleeful when the Doctor threatens to sacrifice himself to blow up the Sontaran fleet, since it means the Sontarans will be taking the Doctor with them.
• I Lied: Fully admits to Luke Rattigan once their plan is in full swing that he never had any intention of holding up his side of their deal and that they would have shot Luke's colleagues dead instead of taking them to a new planet had they accepted his offer.
• Staff of Authority: Carries a staff with him that designates his status as general. It's the one thing distinguishing him from his fellow Sontarans prior to him removing his helmet.
• The Strategist: The mastermind behind the Sontarans' plot to turn Earth into a cloning ground for new Sontarans. The Doctor even notes that his plan involves a lot more subterfuge than the typical Sontaran battle stratagem.
• Villain Respect: Regards the Doctor as a Worthy Opponent and a brilliant military tactician, something the Doctor is less than pleased about. He also seems to at least have some respect for Luke's colleagues for not accepting his offer and outright tells Luke his colleagues were smarter than him.

Commander Skorr

Commander Skorr the Bloodbringer (Tenth Doctor)

Played by: Dan Starkey

A Sontaran commander serving under Staal who leads his ground forces.

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• The Dragon: Second-in-command to General Staal within the Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet.
• Face Death with Dignity: His only words upon being fatally wounded are to remark "wonderful" since he's dying a soldier's death.
• Mook Lieutenant: His primary role is to lead the Sontaran forces on the ground.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Anyone nicknamed "the Bloodbringer" isn't someone to tread lightly around.

Commander Kaagh

See his entry under The Sarah Jane Adventures.

Commander Stark

Commander Stark (Eleventh Doctor)

Played by: Christopher Ryan

The commander of the Sontaran forces participating in the Alliance with the Daleks, the Cybermen and various other enemies of the Doctor.

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• Big Bad Duumvirate: With the Dalek Supreme, the Cyber-Leader and the Nestene as the masterminds behind the plot to seal the Doctor in the Pandorica.
• Expy: Looks the same as Staal and is even portrayed by the same actor. Likely justified In-Universe by the two coming from the same clone batch.

Commander Strax

See his entry under Doctor Who – The Paternoster Gang.

Commander Kaagh

See his entry under The Sarah Jane Adventures.

Commander Skaak

Commander Skaak (Thirteenth Doctor)

Played by: Jonathan Watson

The Sontaran commander who led an unspecified fleet with a particularly devious scheme to conquer Earth during the Crimean War when the Flux was threatening to annihilate the universe.

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• Art Shift: His appearance marks another major redesign of the Sontarans in the Whoniverse, settling for a middle-ground somewhere between the revival era's "baked potatoes" and the original's "lumps of rubber." The best way to describe him and his clone batch are "extra crispy potatoes."
• Faux Affably Evil: Most Sontarans are squarely in the Affably Evil category, being quite polite and respectful despite their ill intentions. Skaak, on the other hand, is surface-level polite and is quite a nasty bugger.
• Not So Above It All: Why did he choose to invade Earth during the Crimean War, specifically? So much war, death and opportunity. Also, he wanted to ride a horse. The Doctor actually takes a seconds-long Beat and pulls a Double Take when she hears that one.
• Opportunistic Bastard: He is, on a surface level, ultimately a scavenger. But a really, really, really good one

Commander Stenck

Commander Stenck (Thirteenth Doctor)

Played by: Jonathan Watson

A Sontaran commander identical to Commander Skaak in charge of the Sontaran operations surrounding the Flux.

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• Big Bad Ensemble: Shares equal billing with Swarm and Azure as the primary villain of Flux/Series 13, albeit as a much more direct - and successful - threat to the Doctor.
• The Chessmaster: See his scheme to take over the Earth and lure the Daleks and Cybermen into acting as fodder to halt the Flux.
• Evil Genius: Oh boy, is he ever. He masterfully takes advantage of the Flux to launch a campaign of conquest against Earth, sneaking past the Lupine shield, precise use of time-travel where humans would be powerless to stop him, and goading the Daleks and Cyberman into acting as his unwitting shields and fodder, protecting the Earth against the Flux. He is, without a doubt, the most successful and capable Sontaran commander the Doctor has gone up against.
• Meet the New Boss: He makes his debut after Skaak is dealt with, but looks identical to him (being played by the same actor) and is functionally the same character.