Doctor Who - New Series, new species part 5

Well I thought I'd have one more bash at this before Christmas, so I'll do my best to give as much info as I can on the species that appeared in the Doctor Who cartoon miniseries The Infinite Quest. Details on all the species featured are sketchy, most don't have names and some have only one individual to represent them, but I'll do my best anyway with the material I've got.

Baltazar










Baltazar was a pretty cool villain, a great take on a pirate scourge of the future. His end was a bit anticlimatic, with the quest of this evil genius turning out to be nothing more than a fool's errand. With many of the new creatures featured there's pretty much zero info on his species, I guess they just had no time to cram that kind of info into into the individual shorts.

Baltazar was a powerful pirate lord of an undefined species in the distant future. He had a typical humanoid frame and could almost be taken to be human where it not for his plan to annihalate the entire human race for profit! Baltazar seemed dependent on technology, notably a strange breathing aparatus - it's unlikely that this was for hazardous atmospheres as he wore it on his own ship so it could just be a personal health issue for him, possible related to his metallic claw hand. Little else points to his identity other than that he constructed a ship susceptible to bacteria and had an affinity for the robotic bird species Caw belonged to - even designing his ship after one - what this tells us about him is unclear.

Caw









Caw was an interesting one with his shifting loyalties an curious design. I wasn't too keen on the sentient robot at first, but then my enthusiasm for the upcoming Transformers flick made me give them a chance!

Caw, and his son Sqwak belonged to a species of robotic birds that had their own civilization in the distant future. Despite their robotic natures they posessed many signs of life (intelligence, eating, growing, offspring) to qualify them as a sentient species. They were dependant of gold for life and were thus obsessed by it, the promise of gold enough to sway their loyalty. They grew from small creatures that could fit in a hand to a human sized bird in a few years, provided they had enough gold to keep their reactors burning. They come from the planet Pharos, which was swarming with similar mechanoids when the doctor visited it so the species may be "Pharosians" or something similar but this hasn't been confirmed.

Animated Skeletons










I'm not sure if these qualify as a species but they're probably worth a mention. I get the feeling they were put in just so the crew could make a "skeleton crew" gag. However their desire for skin made them interesting enough to watch.

In the future on the planet Bouken where war was always close over dwindling oil supplies humanity found a solution to crew employment. they were able to reanimate skeletons so they could think independently and serve without needing to spend money and food and comforts. Captain Kaliko, a pirate fighting the powerful oil firms, employed a crew of these forms. However she found a downside to them, the temptation of getting a new fleshy body was enough to tempt away these servants.

Anuran










The Anuran known as Meergrass was an interesting character, but I'm probably the least interested in his species as he was essentially a "green human" (my term) - a character shoved into a lizard suit just to make things a bit more interesting - though I suppose it made sense since he was supplying arms against humans.

Meergrass belonged to a saurian species known as Anurans from the water covered world of Anura and was a weapons dealer. He had no interest in war, only in getting paid and so turned his back on those he was supplying when they refused to pay, leaving them unarmed. It hasn't been verified whether this is exemplary of his species, or just good business sense.

Mantasphids











This species were probably the most interesting of the bunch, moving from good guys to bad guys and back again. I liked the perspective on what resources mattered with them ready to fight a war over something considered distasteful to humanity and humanity struggling to get light and heat, which the Mantasphids created naturally.

Mantasphids were an insect species that invaded the world Myarr for the resources, particularly animal dung, which contained the nutrients that they needed. The species varied in size from miniature insects to the queen which dwarfed a human. They despised the "fleshy bipeds" (also known as humans) that occupied the world and engaged in war against them for the resources they needed. It took the Doctor's intervention to broker peace between them and humanity so they could share resources for each other's mutual benefit.

Well that's it, like I said it's sketchy, but the best I can do under the circumstances and I hope it's been interesting enough. There'll be another Vehicle of the week coming up soon and I've spotted a few draft articles from my co-writers so hopefully things will keep going.