A Soldier's Education (short story)

A Soldier's Education was the seventh short story published in Twelve Angels Weeping.

Plot
Strax, in the first seven minutes of his life, is exposed to the Sontaran Subliminal Education Matrix and, through data entries, given the Sontaran perspective on many subjects, particularly the Doctor.

Characters

 * Strax

Continuity

 * Strax is created in a cloning pool. (TV: The Sontaran Stratagem)
 * The probic vent is a weak point of the Sontaran body. (TV: The Time Warrior, et al.)
 * Titles of Matrix entries ignored by Strax include "Nurses - Necessary or Cowardly?", (TV: A Good Man Goes to War) "How many fingers do you possess? A career in Special Forces could be for you!", (TV: The Invasion of Time, The Sontaran Experiment)
 * The Matrix teaches of the ATMOS Stratagem, in which Stall the Undefeated used Luke Rattigan to create a device to drown Earth in gas similar to the liquid of cloning pools. (TV: The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky)
 * An old Sontaran saying is "Kill things with a rheon carbine". (PROSE: The Two Doctors, Lords of the Storm)
 * Other Sontaran weapons include fragmentation grenades, (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion, Legacy, Silhouette) the Skyhammer, (COMIC: The Age of Ice) and the Warsong, which can rewrite the surface of entire planets. (COMIC: The Instruments of War)
 * Drop-pods are painted a bright and reflective silver. (TV: The Sontaran Experiment, et al.)
 * Enemies of the Sontaran Empire exist from the Medusa Cascade (TV: Last of the Time Lords, The Stolen Earth) to GalSec Seven. (TV: The Sontaran Experiment)
 * The Rutan Host are the Sontarans' oldest foe. (TV: The Time Warrior, Horror of Fang Rock, et al.)
 * The Sontarans consider themselves more honourable than the Daleks. (TV: The Daleks, et al.)
 * Sontarans mock the Cybermen for their constant need to "upgrade". (TV: Rise of the Cybermen, et al.)
 * While the Sontarans of Strax's era no longer interested in time travel, they have previously tried to master it. (TV: The Two Doctors, The Time Warrior, The Invasion of Time)
 * The Education Matrix suggests that the Time Lords may have changed the history of the Sontarans, that "perhaps Sonatarans have even stood and fought on Gallifrey itself, only to have the memory of those victories stolen away", (TV: The Invasion of Time) and that "perhaps there is a universe-spanning war going on just out of sight... fought in the space between one second and the next." (TV: The Sontaran Stratagem, AUDIO: The Sontaran Ordeal, The Eternity Cage)
 * The Education Matrix has information on Osmic projectors. (TV: The Time Warrior)
 * The Sontarans' first encounter with the Doctor was when Linx of the Fifth Sontaran Army Space Fleet was stranded on Earth. In his report, Linx gave the Third Doctor the title "the Time Warrior" for his martial art ability. (TV: The Time Warrior)
 * The Sontarans' second encounter with the Doctor was when Field Major Styre met the Fourth Doctor. Regeneration was unknown to Sontarans at the time. After this, the Doctor was designated a "Class 2 Nemesis of the Sontaran Empire". (TV: The Sontaran Experiment)
 * The Education Matrix briefly describes Staal's encounter with the Tenth Doctor. (TV: The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky)
 * Archival military reports suggest Sontarans have faced multiple versions of the Doctor at once. (TV: The Two Doctors, PROSE: The Eight Doctors)
 * Unconfirmed reports from the Regalis Sector indicate the new presence of the Thirteenth Doctor. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth, et al.)
 * Sarah Jane Smith is mentioned as one of the Doctor's "pets". (TV: The Time Warrior, The Sontaran Experiment, The Last Sontaran)
 * The newly-created Sontaran is revealed to be Strax. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War, et al.)