Ogron

Ogrons are a fictional extraterrestrial race from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The name may be derived from the mythological ogres.

Ogrons are low-intelligence, ape-like hominids who live in scattered communities on an unnamed planet on the outer fringes of the Milky Way, far from the central spaceways. The dominant lifeform on their home planet is a giant slug-like lizard named the Eater, and the Ogrons both pray to and are preyed on by it.

Ogrons are hired mercenaries. Those who have employed their services include the Daleks and the Master when he was working for the Daleks. On some human planets, Ogrons are employed as police officers, usually led by a mentally augmented leader.

Appearances

In Day of the Daleks in an alternate 22nd Century ruled by the Daleks the Ogrons are used as Police Forces. At the end of the serial Daleks and Ogrons travel back to attack a peace conference and make sure their version of history remains intact. This force is destroyed by a bomb.

In Frontier in Space, set in 2540, the Ogrons are used by the Master to attack spaceships of Earth and Draconia, in an attempt to start a war so the Daleks can conquer the Galaxy. This serial shows the Ogrons home planet.

As well as the original Doctor Who television series, they appear in the Virgin Missing Adventures novel The Romance of Crime by Gareth Roberts, the New Adventures novels Shakedown and Mean Streets, both by Terrance Dicks, and the BBC Books novels Mission: Impractical by David A. McIntee and Interference by Lawrence Miles. In these books, it is explained that the Ogrons are only able to fly spacecraft via their powerful sense of mimicry. Interference states that Ogron speech also uses subsonic frequencies and that they are more intelligent than they appear to be from their audible speech alone. A mentally augmented Ogron named Garshak appears as a supporting character in both Shakedown and Mean Streets, first as police chief for the corrupt megacity on Megarra and later as a private detective.

In The Romance of Crime and Mission: Impractical, the Ogron homeworld is given the name Braah. Because of rapid changes in Braah's climate, the evolutionary path the Ogrons were on got confused, resulting in them being a mixture of primate and carnivore instincts. The Virgin New Adventure So Vile a Sin named it as Orestes. According to the Dalek Survival Guide, written by various Doctor Who novelists, the Ogrons have never named their planet, and a committee has proposed the name "the Ogron Planet".

The Ogrons also appear, in the employ of the Daleks, in the Big Finish Productions audio drama Return of the Daleks.

The Ogrons, their home planet and system are not to be confused with the Ogri, silicon-based lifeforms from the planet Ogros in the Tau Ceti system which appear in the later Doctor Who serial The Stones of Blood.

Television

• Day of the Daleks (1 January – 22 January 1972)^[1]
• Carnival of Monsters (27 January – 17 February 1973)^[2]
• Frontier in Space (24 February – 31 March 1973)^[3]
• Dimensions in Time (1993)^[4]

Audio drama

• Return of the Daleks (released December 2006)

Computer games

• Dalek Attack (1992)

Other uses

• Ogrons bear a certain amount of similarity (including their name) to, and therefore may have inspired the Ogryn race of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, especially as the Ogrons are led by a mentally enhanced leader, and the Ogryns are led by a mentally enhanced leader (usually of a Sergeant rank) known as a Bone-head.

• In Emotional Chemistry by Simon A. Forward, ОГРОН (OGRON) (Оперативная Группа Разведкой Объединённых Наций, or, Operativnaya Gruppa Rasvedkoy Obyedinyonnih Natsiy, which roughly translates to "United Nations Reconnaissance Operations Group") is the Russian division of the alien defence organisation UNIT. The coincidence of names is likely a metafictional in-joke.

References

External links

• Ogron on TARDIS Data Core, an external wiki