Zygon

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Doctor Who race
Zygons
Type	Shapechanging humanoids
Affiliated with	Zygon Empire
Homeworld	Unknown (possibly Zygor)
First appearance	Terror of the Zygons

The Zygons are a fictional extraterrestrial race in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. They first appeared in the Fourth Doctor serial Terror of the Zygons, where it was revealed that centuries ago, the Zygon homeworld was destroyed in a stellar explosion. A craft escaped and somehow made it to Earth, where it then crashed into Loch Ness. When the Doctor encountered the Zygons, they were led by a warlord named Broton. Broton wished to conquer the world to allow a refugee fleet of Zygons to colonize Earth.

The Zygons have shape-shifting abilities, but they must keep the subject alive in order to use its body print. This skill was vital in their concealment and in their scheme to seize power despite their small numbers. The Zygons were also accompanied by an armoured cyborg creature called the Skarasen, the lactic fluid of which was necessary for them to feed. Broton planned to unleash the Skarasen (or Loch Ness Monster as it was known) as part of a bid to conquer the Earth. The plan was foiled and both he and his crew were killed due to the intervention of the Fourth Doctor and the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce.

[edit] Other appearances

The Zygons have also been featured in a series of audio plays produced by BBV productions, as well as meeting the Eighth Doctor in the spin-off novel The Bodysnatchers by Mark Morris, which also named the now-destroyed Zygon homeworld as Zygor. The novel also revealed that Zygor had been destroyed as a result of an attack by an arachnid alien race from Tau Ceti, the Xaranti.

In an unfilmed scene in Part Five of the never completed serial Shada, a Zygon was listed as being among the prisoners kept in the titular Time Lord prison.

The canonicity of the novels and other spin-off media in relation to the television series is uncertain.