Ice Warrior

Ice Warriors
[[File:File:Icewarrior.jpg|250px]]
Ice Warrior
Type of	Reptilian humanoids
Affiliated with	Ice Warriors
Home Planet	Mars
First appearance	The Ice Warriors

The Ice Warriors is the name given to a fictional extraterrestrial race of reptile-like beings in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The race originated on Mars, and first appeared in the 1967 serial, The Ice Warriors, where they encountered the Second Doctor and his companions Jamie and Victoria. The name Ice Warrior is not the name of their species, but was applied to them by an Earth scientific team in the Martians' first on-screen appearance. No female Martians have ever been seen in the series.

Creation

The fourth season of Doctor Who ended with The Evil of the Daleks, a serial intended to retire the Daleks from the series; their creator Terry Nation intended to produce a spin-off in America. The production office was keen to find new recurring monsters to be used instead of the retired Daleks and alongside the popular Cybermen. Brian Hayles was approached to create a suitable monster that could be used as a new recurring antagonist for the Doctor. He drew from newspaper reports of a baby mammoth found in 1900 in the Siberian ice, and from his interest in Mars, to create his monster. James Chapman suggests that director Derek Martinus drew from the Christian Nyby film The Thing from Another World in realising Hayles' scripts, particularly the concept of an alien frozen in ice near an isolated science base.

Hayles had envisioned the Ice Warriors as cybernetic creatures, but designer Martin Baugh, fearing comparisons to the established Cybermen, instead designed costumes with vaguely reptilian features. After their first appearance in 1967’s The Ice Warriors, they were a success and were brought back in 1969 for a second serial. Peter Bryant, the producer of Doctor Who by 1969, also felt that a second appearance might better justify the expensive Ice Warrior costumes employed in their debut serial.

Physical characteristics

The Ice Warriors are reptilian humanoids, their scaly skin and features usually hidden under heavy armour. They have large, claw-like hands on which are mounted sonic weaponry, and their voices are a highly sibilant whisper due to the different composition of Earth's atmosphere. Two types of Ice Warrior are seen in the series, the rank and file Warriors, and an officer class, which fan lore has christened Ice Lords. The main difference between the two is the design of their armour, with the Ice Lords wearing a lighter, more flexible version than those of the Warriors.

History within the show

Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow. Due to the time-traveling nature of the television series, the Doctor would encounter the Ice Warriors out of sequence relative to his timeline. Their first chronological appearance in the series was in the 1969 serial The Seeds of Death, which took place in the mid-21st Century. In that story, the world had grown dependent on the matter transmission system T-Mat. An Ice Warrior strike force seized control of the T-Mat relay on the Moon, using it to send the titular seeds to Earth, which were designed to alter the planet's atmosphere to be hospitable to Martian life. The plan was foiled by the Second Doctor and his companions Jamie and Zoe, and the invading Martian fleet was sent into an orbit around the Sun. Their next chronological appearance was their first on-screen one in 1967, The Ice Warriors, when the world was in the grip of a new ice age. A scientific team sent to halt the advance of the glaciers discovered a spacecraft buried underneath the ice, where it had lain for thousands of years together with its Ice Warrior crew. The Martians revived and attempted to take over the scientific base, but were defeated by the Second Doctor and their ship destroyed as it tried to take off. No date is given for this story on screen, but the Radio Times listing for the serial placed it at the year 3000.

By the time of their next appearance, in 1972's The Curse of Peladon, the Ice Warriors had renounced violence (except in self-defense) and become respected members of a Galactic Federation that included Earth, Mars, Alpha Centauri and Arcturus. When the Third Doctor encountered them on a diplomatic mission to decide the admission of the planet Peladon to the Federation, he was initially distrustful, believing them to be behind an attempted sabotage of the proceedings. However, the culprits turned out to be someone else. Fifty years on, in the 1974 serial The Monster of Peladon, the Ice Warriors returned to Peladon as Federation peacekeeping troops. The leader of the Martian troops, Azaxyr, was working with Galaxy 5, which was at war with the Federation. Seeking a return to the race's warrior past, he tried to impose martial law and take over Peladon, but was stopped by the Peladonians, who were aided by the Third Doctor. Curiously, in this appearance, Azaxyr referred to his troops as Ice Warriors. Both Peladon serials did not give dates, but the Virgin New Adventures novel Legacy by Gary Russell placed them as taking place around the 39th and 40th centuries.

A sequel, The Monster of Peladon, aired in 1974 and was set 50 years after the events of The Curse of Peladon.[2] Here the Ice Warriors are depicted serving as Federation peacekeeping troops. The Ice Lord Azaxyr, however, leader of this force, was working with Galaxy 5, which was at war with the Federation. Seeking a return to the race's warrior past, he tried to impose martial law and take over Peladon but was stopped by the Peladonians, who were aided by the Third Doctor.[23]

As popular recurring monsters the Ice Warriors have appeared in flashbacks and been referred to throughout the series history. During the Second Doctor’s trial during The War Games, he lists the Ice Warriors as among many threats he has defended the universe against.[24] During the Third Doctor serial The Mind of Evil, when forced to confront his fears by the Keller Machine, he sees images of his past enemies including images of Ice Warriors. The newly-regenerated Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison), during a moment of initial instability, makes mention of the Ice Warriors and the Brigadier in the 1981 serial Castrovalva.[25] This has been seen as perhaps alluding to an unseen adventure.[12][26] When confronted by alien sentient water in the 2009 episode “The Waters of Mars” the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) theorises that the Ice Warriors froze it in an underground glacier to prevent its escape, testing the virus by addressing it in Ancient North Martian as it reacts to his words, referring to them as “a fine and noble race who built an empire out of snow”.[27]

The 2013 episode "Cold War" is the first to depict the Ice Warriors in the revived series and features the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) encountering Grand Marshal Skaldak, a legendary warrior who had been trapped in the ice for 5000 years, on a sunken Soviet submarine. It is also the first televised story to depict an Ice Warrior without its armour. After Skaldak escapes from the ice the crew manage to subdue him, which under Martian Law he believes is a declaration of war by humanity. After failing to communicate with his fleet for rescue or reinforcements, Skaldak leaves his armour and tears apart crew members to forensically study the weaknesses of human anatomy. One crew member, Stepashin (Tobias Menzies), reveals to Skaldak that the submarine is armed with nuclear missiles that could destroy the planet. Upon returning to his armour Skaldak prepares to fire the missiles. However he relents and is rescued by an Ice Warrior spaceship that pulls the submarine through the ice to the surface. Before the spaceship leaves, Skaldak deactivates the warheads.[16]

The Ice Warriors reappear alongside the Twelfth Doctor in the 2017 episode "Empress of Mars," featuring the first female Ice Warrior. While female Ice Warriors have been mentioned before, this marks their first onscreen appearance.[28] In the episode, a crew of soldiers in the Victorian era help an Ice Warrior who they nickname Friday get home after his crashed ship is salvaged and he is awoken from suspended animation, only for him to discover the planet is dead. Friday awakens the Ice Queen, Iraxxa, who wants to kill the humans. Despite a rebellion by one of the soldiers, Colonel Godsacre, the missions' true commander, negotiates his death as long as she spares the rest of his men and the Earth. Iraxxa is impressed with his bravery, and offers him to join their ranks. Iraxxa awakens several dormant Ice Warriors, and the Doctor calls the Galactic Federation's Alpha Centauri to pick up the remaining Ice Warriors, realizing this is the beginning of the Ice Warrior golden age.

Other appearances

The Ice Warriors have proven to be one of Doctor Who's most popular and enduring "monsters". In the series itself, they made cameo appearances in the serials The War Games and The Mind of Evil and were supposed to be featured in the never-produced Sixth Doctor serial, Mission to Magnus. They have also appeared in numerous spin-off media, including novels, comic strips and audio plays. In the Doctor Who comic strip published in the Radio Times in 1996, an Ice Warrior named Ssard became a companion to the Eighth Doctor, together with the human Stacy Townsend. Stacy and Ssard reappeared in the BBC Books novel Placebo Effect by Gary Russell, where the two were married.

Appearances

Television

• The Ice Warriors - November 11 - December 16, 1967 • The Seeds of Death - January 25 - March 1, 1969 • The War Games - April 19 - June 21, 1969 • The Mind of Evil - January 30 - March 6, 1971 • The Curse of Peladon - January 29 - February 19, 1972 • The Monster of Peladon - January 12 - February 16, 1974

Spin-off novels

• Mission to Magnus (Target novelisation of unmade serial) by Philip Martin
• Legacy (Virgin New Adventures) by Gary Russell
• Godengine (Virgin New Adventures) by Craig Hinton
• The Dying Days (Virgin New Adventures) by Lance Parkin

Audio spin-offs

• Red Dawn (Big Finish Productions)

External link

• The Ice Warrior page