In The Sontaran Experiment, the Fourth Doctor comments that " Sontarans never do anything without a military reason.

However, the war is still raging at least 20, 000 years later, in the serial The Sontaran Experiment.

All the Sontarans depicted in the television series have monosyllabic names, many beginning with an initial ' st ' sound ( e. g. Styre ( The Sontaran Experiment ), Stor ( The Invasion of Time ), Stike ( The Two Doctors ), Staal ( The Sontaran Stratagem ), and Strax ( A Good Man Goes To War ); exceptions are Linx ( The Time Warrior ), Varl ( The Two Doctors ) Skorr ( The Sontaran Stratagem ) and Kaagh ( The Sarah Jane Adventures )).

Human characters in both The Sontaran Experiment and The Sontaran Stratagem comment on how closely individual Sontarans resemble one another ; however, it should be noted that their height, skin tone, facial features, vocal timbre and accent, hair, spacing of teeth and even number of fingers have varied from story to story, and sometimes within stories.

The swagger stick has appeared in every Sontaran story except The Sontaran Experiment.

In The Sontaran Experiment, Field Major Styre instead used a small red laser pistol which only killed ( although it did not kill the Doctor, because of a small metal plate the Doctor had been keeping in his inside pocket ).

Another Sontaran named Styre appears in The Sontaran Experiment, experimenting on captured astronauts on a future Earth.

Their war is still ongoing at the time of the earlier serial The Sontaran Experiment, which takes place at least 10, 000 years beyond the 30th century.

The Rutans only appeared on television in the serial Horror of Fang Rock, in which a single Rutan is encountered, though they are mentioned in some serials featuring Sontarans ( The Time Warrior, The Sontaran Experiment, The Two Doctors, The Poison Sky and The Last Sontaran and Enemy of the Bane episodes of Doctor Who spin off The Sarah Jane Adventures ).

As Dicks explains in an interview in the documentary Built for War, included on the DVD release of the serial The Sontaran Experiment in 2006, he served as unofficial editor of the Target Books line.

* The Sontaran Experiment

* The Sontaran Experiment ( as Harry Sullivan )

Hound Tor was used extensively in location filming for the 1975 Doctor Who story The Sontaran Experiment.

* The events of this serial and The Sontaran Experiment are referenced in the The Sarah Jane Adventures serial Eye of the Gorgon, and more explicitly in the Fifth Doctor audio story Castle of Fear.

It also suggests that the Earth had never been surveyed, which would eventually happen in the following Sontaran story The Sontaran Experiment.

* The Time Warrior was also released as part of the Bred for War DVD boxset along stories The Sontaran Experiment, The Invasion of Time and The Two Doctors.

* After falling, as the Doctor lies sprawled on the ground, he sees visions of all the companions that previously accompanied his fourth incarnation: Sarah Jane Smith ( Terror of the Zygons ), Harry Sullivan ( The Sontaran Experiment ), Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart ( Invasion of the Dinosaurs, a Third Doctor story ), Leela ( The Robots of Death ), K-9 ( The Armageddon Factor ), Romana I ( The Stones of Blood ) and Romana II ( Full Circle ).

Aside from a ritualistic chant in " The Sontaran Strategem "/" The Poison Sky ", they are never seen to engage in any activity that would be considered recreation, though a few offhand comments by Commander Skorr in " The Poison Sky " suggest they do consider hunting a sport ( according to their creator Robert Holmes, Sontarans do have a highly developed artistic culture, but have put it on hold for the duration of the war, while the opening chapter of the novelisation of The Time Warrior, based on Holmes ' incomplete draft, refers to Linx listening to the Sontaran anthem while his spaceship is in flight ).

Even something as simple as a squash ball aimed at that point ( The Sontaran Stratagem ) or contact by the heel of a shoe (" The Last Sontaran ") is capable of incapacitating them temporarily.

While the Sontaran wear protective helmets in battle, to fight without their helmets, or to be " open-skinned ," is an honor for the Sontaran.

In the episode The Poison Sky, it is revealed that the Sontaran Empire have been at war with the Rutan Host for more than 50, 000 years, and which, at a time around 2008, they are losing.

When the Sontaran reach adulthood, under the charge of Sontaran High Command, each warrior is immediately given a rank and dispatched on a battle mission.

The Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet in the new series consists of a Command Ship and a number of capsules that can be moved into position when Battle Status is enjoined.

Each capsule is small enough to avoid detection by radar and is piloted by an individual Sontaran.

The Sontarans made their first appearance in 1973 in the serial The Time Warrior by Robert Holmes, where a Sontaran named Linx is stranded in the Middle Ages.

In " The Stolen Earth ", It is revealed that UNIT has been experimenting with Sontaran teleportation technology in what they call Project Indigo.

The Sontaran Empire has ostracised him for his failures and the failures of the Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet, and he is forced to work as a mercenary for the alien Bane and later colludes with their renegade Mrs Wormwood to unleash the ancient entity Horath.

# Series 4 ( 2008 ) episodes Partners In Crime, The Sontaran Strategem / The Poison Sky and The Stolen Earth / Journey's End ; and Turn Left, ( which is set in a parallel universe ).

The organic nature of Rutan technology is one of the chief differences between them and their Sontaran enemies.

In the New Series Adventures Quick Reads book The Sontaran Games, by Jacqueline Rayner, it is revealed that the character Emma, who acts as the Doctor's companion-substitute in the book, is a Rutan spy disguised as a human it killed.

Linx catches the Doctor in the laboratory once more, but this time is rendered immobile when a lucky strike from Rubeish hits his probic vent – a Sontaran refuelling point on the back of their necks which is also their main weakness.

The newly married Martha Smith-Jones and Mickey Smith are seen being chased by a Sontaran sniper in the last Tenth Doctor serial The End of Time, for unknown reasons.

* The original outline for the serial was humorously submitted to the production office in the form of a " Field report from Sontaran Field Marshal Hol Mes, to Terran Cedicks ".

* This serial, along with The Time Warrior was referred to in The Sarah Jane Adventures serial The Last Sontaran.

* This story was the first two-part serial since The Sontaran Experiment ( 1975 ); each Peter Davison season would include at least one two-parter.

* ATMOS ( ATMOSpheric emission system ), fictional technology that appears in the 2008 Doctor Who two-part serial " The Sontaran Stratagem " / " The Poison Sky "

A Sontaran from the television series Doctor Who ( from The Time Warrior ).

Subdivisions of the Sontaran military structure mentioned in the series include the Sontaran G3 Military Assessment Survey and the Grand Strategic Council, the Ninth Sontaran Battle Group, the Fifth Army Space Fleet of the Sontaran Army Space Corps, and the Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet.

The Sontarans make their return in the revived series in the episodes " The Sontaran Strategem " and " The Poison Sky ", with Christopher Ryan playing the Sontaran leader, General Staal of the Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet and also being the story arc's primary antagonist.

The Sontaran design was revamped for the new series, though not to a great extent.

A Sontaran named Commander Kaagh the Slayer, of the 10th Sontaran Fleet, made his appearance in the second series of the spin-off show in episodes 1 and 2, The Last Sontaran.

In 2008, as part of Character options first series 4 2008 wave of action figures, they released some Sontaran action figures.

* In one of the few times in the series that the Doctor directly kills anyone, he uses the de-mat gun to disintegrate the Sontaran warriors.