Rutan (Doctor Who)

Rutan Host

Doctor Who race

Rutans Type Shapechanging protean lifeforms Affiliated with Rutan Host Home planet Unknown First appearance Horror of Fang Rock The Rutan Host, or Rutans are a fictional extraterrestrial race from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. They appear as green jellyfish, glowing blobs of biomatter with long ropy tentacles. They are amphibious, able to cling to sheer vertical surfaces and generate lethal biolelectrical shocks. They have also developed advanced shape-shifting technology allowing them to appear in any form they wish. They are at war with the Sontarans. Rutans never refer to themselves as individuals, prefering the first person plural 'we', 'us' or 'our(s)'. This is because the race does not see the individual unit as important and all individual desires are subsumed by the general desire to win the war with the Sontaran Empire. The Rutans only appeared in one television serial, Horror of Fang Rock; however, they also made appearances in the New Adventure novel Shakedown and the spin-off video of the same name. The Doctor brokered a peace between the two species in the Lance Parkin novel The Infinity Doctors. As with all of the spin-off media, the canonicity of the novels and videos are unclear.