Minister Of War

The Minister of War, also known as Blikz, was an Eternal, choosing to wile away time by creating conflict among lower species. A long time ago, the Minister of War, Vilvella, and Vilvella’s brother began a contest: to craft the greatest universal battle. Vilvella weaponised the Daleks and invented the Movellans, Vilvella’s brother was responsible for the Sontaran-Rutan War, meanwhile Blikz struggled to form his ideas, resorting to lies and grandeur to give himself a greater sense of self-importance, not least by taking the title of ‘Minister of War’.

At some unspecified point, Blikz witnessed the Genocide of Rhodia, a planet’s death at the hands of the Shadow Kin, and used their basic species template as inspiration for his own warriors: the Shadowmen, and the Shadow Hosts.

Biography
While observing the Sontaran-Rutan conflict from afar, the Unknown Shade and Prog/Ram his agents on the ground, the Minister of War first came into contact with the Doctor, rescued by the Shade from an exploding Sontaran Command Facility, who had prior knowledge of the Minister’s exploits having already met his subordinates (AUDIO: Open Doors; Out Of Service). Talking to the Doctor, the Minister of War took credit for the surrounding battle, going as far to say that he had created the Sontaran race, then scanned her brain to ascertain her knowledge. The Doctor soon escaped, returning with a Rutan EMP device that disabled the entire planet’s electrical signals as transmitted by the Minister’s observation centre. Following this setback, the Minister of War sent Prog/Ram’s AI to Sontar’s moon of Ansoator, and based on the Doctor’s fascination of Earth, the Unknown Shade was instructed to travel there, to discover more about her, as well as to further the primary objective: ‘find [him] bodies’ to test his shadow creations on. (AUDIO: Conquest Of Sontar)

Following this encounter, the Minister of War’s subordinates would meet the Doctor one-on-one, in their respective futures but her past, each guided not only by protocol but the Minister’s desire to learn more about the Doctor and meet her again. (AUDIO: Open Doors; Out Of Service) The Minister of War would even taunt the Doctor over speakers on Ansoator, asking if she wanted ‘to stay and chat’. (AUDIO: Out Of Service)

Eventually, the Minister would step foot on Earth itself, landing spaceships across the planet’s surface (including Stockton, thanks to the Doctor’s recollections of Jason’s hometown) that would act as transmitters, spreading the shadow across humanity. He openly taunted the Doctor, citing companions she’d lost: ‘Rose Tyler’, ‘Clara Oswald’ and ‘Yasmin Khan’, going on to relay his experience with the Genocide of Rhodia before two versions of the Doctor, Jason Whittaker, and O’Donnell disabled each ship. However, the Minister had prepared for this, using Arist technology to hide the real transmitters inside the fakes, sending these into the atmosphere and activating them to the tune of The Muppets, converting the planet and sending the Doctor to the middle of Vilvella’s Dalek conflict, his final advice to Jason being ‘run’. (AUDIO: Eternal War)

With the Earth subjugated, the Minister communicated to any survivors through the Shadowmen, Jason included. He was present when Tommi and Wilson infiltrated his spaceship, converting Tommi into a Host before killing Wilson within a new Shadowman form. When the Doctor returned to Earth, he began his battle, the Shadowmen and Hosts attacking each other. As Jason broke through, he was ready to kill him as a mercy, interrupted only by the Doctor, now aware of his past. Believing she would never sacrifice herself to stop him, he was never given the chance to be proven right as Jason stepped up, appealing to the warriors’ humanity and awakening the humans inside. The reversal of shadow caused the spaceship to crash, the Minister forcibly merged with decaying shadow, his physical form corrupted and trapping him in a wall, still alive. (AUDIO: Against The Dying Of The Light)

Personality
The Minister of War in objective terms was a failure, having achieved nothing in comparison to his Eternal counterparts. While his shadow’s initial takeover of Earth was successful, this was only temporary, and he was still millenia behind his competition in even selecting his warriors.

Outwardly he concealed this, adopting a calm and polite demeanour at first with utmost confidence (AUDIO: Conquest Of Sontar), only breaking the facade when annoyed or trying to show his power (AUDIO: Eternal War). He coupled this stance with frequent lies, taking credit for the wars of other Eternals to present himself as a much higher stature than he actually was (AUDIO: Conquest Of Sontar; Eternal War). Despite this, there may be more to the Minister of War than meets the eye, given his implication that he and the other Eternals were involved in ‘bigger wars’ (AUDIO: Against The Dying Of The Light). A true explanation remains to be seen.