Doctor Who: What If…

From its Nov 23 globally simulcast 50th anniversary special featuring some beloved former cast returning to the show, to the current protagonist Matt Smith announcing his departure from the longest-running science fiction TV show in the world on its Christmas Special, 2013 has been 1 emotional roller coaster after another for the Doctor Whocommunity.

Those uninitiated to this cult classic may be baffled as to how the series can go on without its protagonist. It’ll take years (even with time-travelling) to explain the series in detail but here’s UrbanWire’s condensation of Doctor Who.

The Brit TV series revolves around a humanoid alien known as “The Doctor”. Together with his sentient time-travelling machine, the “Time and Relative Dimension in Space”, or the TARDIS, for short, the Doctor travels across the universe, sometimes with a human companion or 2, and usually ends up saving the day (and planet) after plenty of chaos.

The Doctor, who’s a Timelord (one of Doctor Who’s many alien species), can completely change his physical form upon old age or a fatal wound. This causes an entire overhaul in his physical appearance and personality (which conveniently allows him to be played by another actor); his memories, however, remains in his head.

Of course, with 50 years (human time) of alien fighting under his belt, the Doctor has faced many foes, many of whom have survived and continued to terrify those watching the series now, especially in the latest Christmas Special (“The Time Of The Doctor“).

These enemies seem bent on destroying the Doctor, but what if the show’s frontrunner Steven Moffat decided to have these villains turn on each other instead?

To the uninitiated, here’s an introduction to 4 of the Doctor’s biggest enemies:
Daleks
Weeping Angels
Cybermen
Sontarans

And here’s our verdict.

Daleks

What they are:
A classic Doctor Who villain, the Daleks, are a cyborg alien species created by a scientist, Davros, who genetically modified planet Skaro’s inhabitants, Kaleds, by putting them into lethal metal shells and entirely removing their emotions, save for hatred. These Skaro natives are now an emotionless lethal army that hates anyone outside of their species.

Strength:
These metal canisters can kill very efficiently. You wouldn’t think it given their clunky physical forms, but Daleks can fly and shoot lethal death rays at other life forms. It definitely doesn’t help that their most recent addition to their defense involves the ability to slow bullets down, creating a matrix-like effect, preventing fatal attacks at them. Also, as much as we hate to admit, the Daleks are an elite killing force – imagine having the ability to keep every solider fully informed by an artificial telepathic network (known as “Pathweb”).

Weaknesses:
Their known weakness is their solitary eyehole, the only penetrable part of the Daleks. Thankfully, these pesky universe exterminators still can’t transcend the science of physical space (they’re still incapable to changing their sizes at will), which could work in our advantage. Also, while they’re deadly, they sometimes act like snooty 3-year-olds, demanding an explanation whenever they’re confused.

Weeping Angels

What they are:
Look carefully at the statues around you; 1 of them could be a Weeping Angel.

Quite possibly the most terrifying alien species on Doctor Who, the enigmatic Weeping Angels, commonly seen with their heads in their hands, as if they’re weeping, are said to be almost as old as the Universe. Known as “lonely assassins” because they can never look at each other, these statues throw their victims into another time, feasting on the remaining time energy (the life the victim would’ve led if they hadn’t been thrown into another time) of the victim for sustenance.

Strengths:
Protected by a most ingenious defense system, the Weeping Angels are quantum-locked, which means that they simply don’t exist whenever they’re being observed. Ordinarily, these strange creatures turn to stone and they’re impossibly quick and will transport you back in time (for their survival) before you know it.

If that’s not impressive enough, anything that takes the image of an Angel will eventually become an Angel, which makes it nearly impossible to obtain visual evidence of them. The Angels can create images of themselves in their victims’ minds, causing hallucinations and eventually, death, as they manifest themselves in their victims’ bodies.

Weaknesses:
Their greatest strength is also their greatest weakness. All it takes to keep them quantum locked is to have at least 1 person looking directly at the angel at any given time. Of course, one can always outwit the Angel, and have them look at their own reflection, leaving them stuck as a statue.

Just like what the Doctor did in the episode Blink, we can trick these crafty statues into looking at each other locking them for eternity.

Cybermen

What they are:
In essence, the Cybermen are similar to the Daleks, except with anatomy that we’re more familiar with. But depending on where you are in time and space, these modified creatures will appear physically different.  However, some things remain the same – their belief in the superiority of their kind, a lack of emotions, and the fact that, as the name suggests, they vaguely resemble a man in a metal suit.

Strength:
The cybermen are one of the bigger threats to other planets, with at least 12 legions of battle-ready metal robots. As indestructible as they are destructive, they’re bulletproof with an arsenal of deadly weapons – from cyber wrist blasters hidden in their forearms to cyber-planners capable of gathering data from media transmissions to even certain human subjects.

Weaknesses:
Their unfeeling nature may help them in combat, but causing a cyberman to feel will literally destroy him.

Sontarans

What they are:
As the Doctor described quite succinctly, when he called out, “Oi, Mr Potato Head!, short and stocky Sontarans are walking potatoes conditioned for warfare. Big on honor for Sontar and violence, this practically hairless species considers dying in battle life’s greatest achievement.

Strength:
Their immense pride in their race makes them “the finest soldiers in the galaxy” (“The Sontaran Strategem”) because they’d rather die than to betray their kind. With the ability to clone themselves at 1 million embryos every 4 minutes (that’s 250,000 embryonic Sontarans every minute), this race takes a mere 10 minutes to go from embryo to fully mature fighting potatoes. Couple the heart-attack-inducing army numbers with a fearless need for warfare, it’s no wonder they’re a formidable force.

Weaknesses:
These spuds have their own Achilles heel, or in this case, neck. Aside from being stabbed exactly at the feeding vent at the back of their nape, the Sontarans are indestructible.

Like the Daleks, Sontarans aren’t exactly the brightest bulbs in the drawer and the Doctor has, on countless occasions, “defeated” (the Doctor never kills) them by manipulating their pride, most prominently in “The Sontaran Strategem”.

Our Verdict
While the Sontarans have the ability to reproduce in bulk at a rapid pace, they’re not as swift, and are constrained by their pride. Which species, aside from them, would willingly fight without helmets despite being armed with one? After all, what’s a Sontaran casualty when they can easily replace the dead solider with – quite literally – a million others?

Their pride also means that a war with this race could get quite exciting as the Sontarans will go against all odds to win, and while their numbers are overwhelming, they’re also the least defended – all you have to do is to attack them from behind, pray that you hit their probic vent, and then they’re down. This makes their chances of winning a hit or miss; we’ll be seated at the edge of our seats waiting to see who earns the victory.

Daleks however, will prove to have the most violent outcome. As mentioned earlier, they’re ruthless, and more than willing to wipe out a galaxy or 2 (or 20) to get whatever they want. The significance of lives taken away is lost on this species, we’d wager that they’d see it as a statistical regret – something that’s essential for victory. After all, it’s something that they’ve already done in the Time War, nearly causing the entire Universe to go up in flames, who’s to say that they won’t do it again?

If allies were possible, it’d be likely to see a temporary truce between the Daleks and Cybermen considering their many similarities. However, while Daleks seek to destroy everything that’s not them, the Cybermen seek to convert everyone into them, it’d be exciting to see a showdown between them when their differences finally becomes strategically disadvantageous.

Any war with the Weeping Angels, on the other hand, would either be a lost cause because they’re just going to zap everyone back in time, or an extremely anti-climatic one as it’s impossible to see these enigmatic angels in action. There isn’t much information about these stone statues from hell (figuratively), but they probably have some form of telepathy between them for communication. That said, they’re not known to travel in groups, and are probably the least likely to engage in a war with anyone.

In all, we think the Daleks will emerge victorious in this battle; they already have a track record of doing anything, at any cost – even to the point of inviting their mortal enemy (The Doctor) onboard to help save them from Daleks-gone-wrong – just to come out of any battle a winner.

In the war between these 4 terrifying alien species, who do you think will win the battle? Tell us what you think in the comments below.