Howling:Would the Sontarans really annhilate the Rutans?

In "The Gunpowder Plot", the Rutans and the Sontarans both race to 1600s England to retrieve two doomsday weapons that would completely wipe out an entire race. At the end, both have one weapon, but the Doctor has meddled with them so they would be dangerous to use. But would the Sontarans really have used the weapon to destroy all the Rutans in the first place? With no Rutans there would be no war and with no war the Sontarans would have no purpose in life. With no enemy, they would either be forced to wage war on their own or another race to ensure they died in battle, because to them it was a disgrace not to. I think in TGP they only came to make sure the weapons didn't fall into Rutan tentacles and never intended to use them. Any thoughts? 87.102.117.106talk to me 11:28, January 7, 2012 (UTC)

I'm sure the Sontarans could and would find other enemies. They seem quite good at provoking hostile reactions. --89.241.75.207talk to me 17:25, January 7, 2012 (UTC)

What puzzles the Hell out of me is what actually started the war. Discrimination between two obviously different races probably comes into it, but I'd expect the Sontarans to go to war with an enemy that posed a real threat, like the Cybermen, who want to take over the universe, not a bunch of green jellyfish. 87.102.117.106talk to me 17:54, January 7, 2012 (UTC)

Well based on the fact that the Sontaran-Rutan War has been going on for practically forever with no sign of ending, I would say that both sides seem pretty evenly matched. Who knows how the war started anymore? I doubt that the Sontarans and Rutans even know what they're fighting about at this point. For all we know, the Sontarans only became the cloned war-based race they are today because they've been fighting the Rutans for so long. Or maybe before the Rutan war, they tried to earn honor and die in combat by attacking every planet they found, but the Rutans fought back a bit more than they expected. Anyway, I'm sure the Sontarans would be more than happy to finish the Rutans off if given the chance. I'm not sure exactly how the Sontaran's system of honor works, but I should imagine that there is more honor in killing your enemies and winning a war than there is in dying in battle. If they were ever to defeat the Rutans, then I have no doubt that they would find a new enemy to fight in no time.Icecreamdif talk to me 20:56, January 7, 2012 (UTC)

Which leaves only one question: which race is the most likely candidate for them to go to war against, if they ever annhilate the Rutan Host? 87.102.117.106talk to me 21:53, January 7, 2012 (UTC)

The Daleks are probably the only race that enjoys war even more than the Sontarans do, but the Sontarans would probably rather fight against an enemy that they actually have a chance of killing. The universe is a very large place, filled with countless species of which we've only seen a tiny fraction of. It probably doesn't matter anyway, because it doesn't look like the Sontaran-Rutan war will end any time soon.Icecreamdif talk to me 23:35, January 7, 2012 (UTC)

As Sarah Jane told Kaagh in 2008 (SJA: The Last Sontaran), the Sontaran-Rutan War will still be going in 10,000 years. She was (I think) referring to The Sontaran Experiment, and there was no sign then that the war was nearing its end. Finding a new enemy doesn't seem like a matter of urgency, right now. --89.242.67.48talk to me 00:42, January 8, 2012 (UTC)

Bear in mind that in TGP the Rutans managed to create two deadly weapons that would have stopped the war at the push of a button. If they can create a weapon like that once, they can certainly create another one. 87.102.117.106talk to me 10:47, January 8, 2012 (UTC)

And you say this because of your detailed knowledge of the physics,manufacturing capability, intergalactic politicals and strategic and tactical state of the war at that moment?

There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat, And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures.Boblipton talk to me 12:41, January 8, 2012 (UTC)

Well on the wiki, it says that the Rutan Host reproduce by binary fission. This creates two Rutans at once. I reckon the fact that two weapons have been produced in TGP when realistically they only need one suggests some similar manufacture happened here, and that the weapon could be more biological than technological. That could mean they are still diffocult to produce, but I doubt the Rutans will have given up on the idea of creating another couple of doomsday weapons since then. 87.102.117.106talk to me 12:51, January 8, 2012 (UTC)

And perhaps the Sontarans figured out how to block or stop the doomsday weapon about 1650. Perhaps it was not as overwhelming a device as believed. Perhaps it was all a bluff. Far too much disputation on this wiki seems to araise out of the statement "I cannot instantly understand in full and complete detail how this situation arises on first noticing it. Therefore it is nonsense!" I prefer to look at the situation and derive explanations from it. Or sometimes I prefer to shrug and ignore the matter entirely. I have some issues with the details of th Whoniverse, the same as anyone here. Sometimes the storytelling overreaches itself. Not infrequently, in an ill advised attempt to increase tension, we see the threats escalated to a full planet, a full race, the universe. Ah, the universe is doomed. Again. Those, however, are errors in story-telling, not in matters of sacred texts or morality. I enjoy the show, I spend a lot of time on it. I also do other things. If this seems terribly important to you, maybe you should go volunteer work on a campaign or go to a highway and pick up litter. Boblipton talk to me 13:23, January 8, 2012 (UTC)

Believe it or not, coincidentally I actually do volunteering work and today I helped pick up litter. But what it even has to do in the slightest with a fictional millenia long intergalactic war, I have no idea. 87.102.117.106talk to me 15:52, January 8, 2012 (UTC)

I applaud your community action. It shows that you have other causes, some of which are definitely more socially useful and which also have a positive result, albeit temporarily. Boblipton talk to me 20:35, January 8, 2012 (UTC)

Just about everything is temporary, if you take the long view. Even the universe won't last forever. While it lasts, it's a good idea not to let ourselves be buried in litter. --2.101.62.55talk to me 20:50, January 8, 2012 (UTC)

And yet here we are. Boblipton talk to me 20:53, January 8, 2012 (UTC)

Temporarily. --2.101.62.55talk to me 21:03, January 8, 2012 (UTC)

Uhh, forgive me for asking, but what does this have to do with anything?Icecreamdif talk to me 04:16, January 9, 2012 (UTC)

Forgiven and nothing, respectively. --89.241.77.143talk to me 05:43, January 9, 2012 (UTC)

So are we going back to the discussion now, or do we still have a load of random unrelated stuff to go on about? 87.102.117.106talk to me 16:39, January 9, 2012 (UTC)

Good manners and concern for other people are never irrelevant and should not be random. Boblipton talk to me 21:38, January 9, 2012 (UTC)

I can't do a pukka English accent (especially not in typing), so you'll have to use your imagination: Hear, hear. Well said, sir! --89.241.73.161talk to me 03:02, January 10, 2012 (UTC)

Okay, in that case, are we going back to the discussion now, or do we still have lots of relevant and unrandom stuff to go on about? 87.102.117.106talk to me 16:26, January 10, 2012 (UTC)

I urge you to feel free to take this discussion in any direction that you think will not bore the audience. Boblipton talk to me 17:43, January 10, 2012 (UTC)

Well, this convesation seems to be drifting away from Doctor Who in general. Probably because there's not much to say once its been established that the Sontarans would be perfectly willing to kill the Rutans. Icecreamdif talk to me 21:29, January 10, 2012 (UTC)

I think you might have a point, there. --2.101.54.163talk to me 21:55, January 10, 2012 (UTC)

The discussion is about the end of TGP as much as anything, and I thought it was going well until it was turned into a cnversation not just irrelevant to the war but to the Whoniverse as a whole. However it seems intrest in the discussion has died. Shame. 87.102.117.106talk to me 23:20, January 10, 2012 (UTC)

Anyone interested in the Sontaran/Rutan war may like to see this discussion I created on Doctor Who Answers wiki a while ago: http://drwho.answers.wikia.com/wiki/Forum:Rutans_vs_Sontarans:_who_will_win%3F Anyway, I believe the Doctor once said that his money is on the Rutans winning the war, and this could be because he KNOWS they will one day win the war, or come close to it, anyway. If I'm wrong then I'm sure the Sontarans would find a new enemy, most likely the Cybermen, because it would be a pretty evenly matched war. 94.72.237.220talk to me 17:30, January 17, 2012 (UTC)

If they wanted to wage war on the Cybermen, they wouldn't bother waiting for the end of their war with the Rutans. As somene mentioned on the Watercooler discussion in the link, the Sontarans have been known to get too cocky and take on multiple enemies at once. But I agree that they are the Cybermen are the most next most likely enemy for them to make, because "A Good Man Goes To War" showed us how powerful they have become. The Sontarans will most likely see this as a threat, and I'd be surprised if they haven't yet considered a war with them. 87.102.94.3talk to me 15:23, January 21, 2012 (UTC)

There are plenty of powerful races in the Whoniverse, most of whom we haven't even seen. Even the Rutans have only ever made one appearance. Maybe the Sontarans would go to war with the Cybermen, or maybe they would choose another race who we haven't heard of. It doesn't really matter much anyway, because the war with the Rutans shows no sign of ending.Icecreamdif talk to me 18:50, January 21, 2012 (UTC)

To repeat what 87 and someone else on the Watercooler discussion have already stated: the Sontarans are a cocky race. They are notorious for starting multiple wars at once. I believe they even once took on the Time Lords. So if the Cybermen or any other race show up, the Sontarans will go to war with them even if they are already taking on the Rutans. 94.72.237.220talk to me 22:13, January 21, 2012 (UTC)

The Cybermen have been around for a long time, and the Sontarans have never tried to take them on as far as we know. We don't even know if the two species have even ever tried to make a claim to the same part of space. The Sontarans might try to go to war with the Cybermen some day, but there is no reason to believe that they would other than that they like war and the Cybermen have guns. Besides, they never really intended on going to war with Gallifrey. Once they got the Doctor to take down the transduction barrier, they only had to send one ship to conquer the planet.Icecreamdif talk to me 23:19, January 21, 2012 (UTC)

The reasons that the Cybermen are the most likely candidates for enemies follow: 1. As shown in AGMGTW, the Cybermen now have powerful fleets that monitor the whole universe. The Doctor might have destroyed one, but presumably there are many more. The Sontarans would most likely interpret this as an attempt to upstage them. 2. The Sontarans don't fear being killed - but being demoralised and cyber-converted to them would be a terrible fate. Since the Cybermen most likely try to upgrade all living things, the Sontarans would be horrified at the prospect of turning into something that doesn't just not take joy in war, but doesn't take joy in anything at all. 94.72.237.220talk to me 23:49, January 21, 2012 (UTC)

Well, the Cybusmen seem to really only be interested in humans, but the Mondasian Cybermen probably would convert Sontarans if they crossed paths. However, apart from the brief alliance in The Pandorica Opens, we don't know that the Sontarans have ever met any version of the Cybermen. I'm not saying that there is no way that the Sontarans would ever possibly go to war with the Cybermen, but there are plenty of other races with powerful fleets that monitor the whole universe. I don't think that the Sontarans would really bother to start another war unless they were invaded, or it was a species so inferior that they can easily win. They already have a war with the Rutans going on to satisfy their bloodlust, and they know enough about military tactics to realize that fighting another war would take resources away from the first war. We have never actually seen the Sontarans attempt to start another war in addition to the one with the Rutans(unless you count wanting to join the Time War). Their attacks on Earth have always been to gain some kind of tactical advantage in the Rutan war, and they knew the Humans wouldn't really be able to fight back anyway. Their attack on Gallifrey was really more of a take over than an invasion. They never intended to actually wage war against the Time Lords.Icecreamdif talk to me 21:45, January 22, 2012 (UTC)

And you know this from your centuries spent studying Sontaran psychology? I apologize for the sarcasm.... no, I don't. Given a species which manages to include gun-toting Christians, Quakers like Richard Nixon -- and that's just the mainstream US; I'm sure that other nations have their own mass loonies, judging by news of football hooligans and at least one South American war started over a soccer match -- to argue that a species of warlike cloned potatoes would only start a war they felt they could win easily strikes me as overreaching. That's far too common an occurrence in these pages, and people whine that because they can't understand the intricacies of multi-dimensional time, it must be wrong..... even while they accept a bowtie-wearing alien travelling around all of space and time in a wooden box that's bigger on the inside. Given that we pink weasels can accept the last, why do we constantly proclaim that any of the foregoing is hard to accept? Boblipton talk to me 22:01, January 22, 2012 (UTC)

That paragraph could probably be summed up in one semtence, but I'd agree that the Sontarans will start any war whether they have a chance of winning or not. 94.72.237.220talk to me 23:23, January 22, 2012 (UTC)

Describing the Sontarans as warlike cloned potatoes is also was to simple a way of looking at them. Yes, they enjoy war, but that doesn't mean that they'll randomly go to war with the Cybermen, or anyone else, for no reason. The Sontarans would probably not go to war with the Cybermen just for the honor of combat. They already have a war with the Rutans for that. If they were to go to war with the Cybermen, then it would be either to get something from them, or to prevent their own destruction. A war with the Cybermen would have the potential to last just as long as the one with the Rutans, and the Rutans would likely take advantage of this distraction. There are also many other powerful species in the universe, so if the Sontarans were to start another war, it would be just as likely to be with the Daleks, Dominators, Raxicoricofalapatorians, Earth Empire, Galactic Federation, or any of the other countless races who we haven't even seen.Icecreamdif talk to me 00:34, January 23, 2012 (UTC)

It's an oversimplified way of lookibg at the Sontarans, admittedly, but not totally wrong. The Sontarans have taken on other enemies, even while still fighting the Rutans. They haven't, though, set out to start a second full-scale, long-term war while still engaged against the Rutans. They've miscalculated a few times -- and pulled out when it became clear they'd taken on too much. However, the discussion was meant to be about whether or not the Sontarans would really destroy the Rutans, if they got the chance. The consensus so far seems to be: If they did get the chance, the prospect of being left with nobody to fight wouldn't stop them, because they could find someone else to fight and, even if they didn't set out to get themselves a replacement enemy, their normal behaviour would probably get them into a war with somebody before too long, anyway. --89.241.77.125talk to me 07:24, January 23, 2012 (UTC)

On the possible diversity of Sontaran society, Boblipton compared it with the US. The trouble (in both cases) is that the internal diversity doesn't matter too much to others. If the only Sontarans (or Americans) other people ever encounter are soldiers who don't seem to care who they slaughter, that's how the Sontarans (or the Americans) will be perceived. They'll be perceived that way even if it's not a fair assessment of the soldiers, never mind the unseen civilians back home. The military itself doesn't actually have to be uncaringly trigger-happy, they only need to look uncaringly trigger-happy -- or be vulnerable to being portrayed that way by those with their own axes to grind. All we've seen of the Sontarans is the military; if they have their pacifists back home, we know nothing of them. Potential enemies will almost certainly be in the same position. --89.241.77.125talk to me 07:52, January 23, 2012 (UTC)

Let's also not forget that we're seeing Sontarans in a War; it may be a long war in our perspective but it's still a war. It's not like a race will never change, evolve, or reform their social structure. We saw chanes in Daleks and Timelords. It's quite ludicrous to assume that a society would be reluctant to complete something due to fear that fulfilling a central purpose of the society would leave them with nothing to do. --～～～～

Has it ever actually been stated that the Sontarans went to war with the Rutans because they love going to war with people. For all we know, Sontaran culture only developed a love of war after spending centuries fighting the Rutans.Icecreamdif talk to me 00:04, January 24, 2012 (UTC)

I find it logically inconsistent for you to argue that we don't know enough of Sontaran culture to know when they developed a love of war annd elsewhere to argue that they would not behave in a certain way. All we can surmise from lack of knowledge is what some humans would do under certain circumstances. The Sontarans are not humans. They are not even near-humans. We can rargued from observed events, and all observed events indicate that the Sontarans we see love fighting so much that they take pleasure in the thought of dying in war. I suggest that it's hard to die in war if you're not in a war. Boblipton talk to me 01:37, January 24, 2012 (UTC)

The love of war is a major part of Sontaran culture, but they can't always have been that way. It is very possible that their obsession with war became a part of their culture as a direct result of their war with the Rutans. Of course, after countless generations of war they probably can't concieve life without it at this point, but there must be some peaceful Sontarans. Afterall, the entire species can't possibly be soldiers. There must be Sontaran scientists and doctors as well as many other professions. Granted, there primary goal these days is probably to commit to the war effort, but I doubt that Sontaran scientists are nearly as bloodthirsty as their soldiers, even if there main task is to design better weapons and ships.Icecreamdif talk to me 01:53, January 24, 2012 (UTC)

Notice the assumptions in your argument. Why can't they have always been that way? Why must there be peaceful Sontarans? Why can't the entire society be soldiers? We've seen one example of Sontaran soldiers orderedf to raise the kiddies. Why not others ordered to raise crops or working in arms factory or building bigger and better booms? I'm not asserting these to be facts. I'm making no assumptions, but would like to see your evidence that they haven't gotten these weapons from elsewhere. Can't be done, you say? Take a look at Poul Anderson's The High Crusade for an amusing and self-consistent story of civilized space-travellers conquered by medieval knights.

All of your asumptions seem to be based on the fact that there are lots of differnet humans and not all of them are bloodthirsty maniacs. We're not dealing with humans. Boblipton talk to me 02:04, January 24, 2012 (UTC)

We're not dealing with humans and we do need to be careful extrapolating from humans to Sontarans. On the other hand, we do know the Sontarans cannot always have been exactly the way we've seen them. As we've seen them, they reproduce by artificial (technological) cloning. They may have been doing that for a long time but they can't always have reproduced that way. From what Strax (the Sontaran nurse) said in A Good Man Goes to War, the Sontarans are mammalian -- he talked of producing milk. It's not a lot to go on and it certainly doesn't mean they were ever very similar to us. --89.240.240.55talk to me 09:18, January 24, 2012 (UTC)

There's very little use in trying to prove something in which we all have no real knowledge. Instead of being obsessed with past/present Sontaran society and what certain Sontaran individuals may think or behave, maybe steering the discussion back to what would prevent the Sontarans from destroying Rutans. There's still no valid point that gives a logical reason why Sontarans wouldn't completely destroyed them if they had the chance to do it and why the war-loving/honouring culture of Sontarans couldn't possible change. Considering that Cybermen and Daleks both evolve in terms of social cultures and they even lack many value-forming emotions that are integral to society; Timelords degenerated in the War; humans became human-murdering Toclafanes; there's very little rationale in supporting the assumptions in the original argument. --～～～～

That's true. And I think we've got about as far as we can get with the on-topic discussion -- in fact, we got to the conclusion a good while ago: The Sontarans would annihilate the Rutans, if they could. The rest is arguing (on inadequate evidence) about what might happen next.

To go decidedly off-topic, for a moment, what are you using for a signature and why doesn't it include the time and date, which ought to be added automatically? All I see is 4 of the little squares that represent characters (usually in Eastern Asian scripts) that can't be displayed correctly. --89.242.70.169talk to me 13:03, January 24, 2012 (UTC)

If the Sontarans had annhiliated the Rutans in TGP, the effect would be exactly the same as if the Cybermen ever upgraded the universe or if the Daleks destroyed everything. They just wouldn't know what to do. As Agatha Christie once said in "The Unicorn and the Wasp", the thrill is in the chase, never in the capture. My guess is simply that they would start another war. 94.72.237.220talk to me 16:25, January 24, 2012 (UTC)